[Aleratar Fic] Long Day

Jan 07, 2010 18:06

Probably going to be a while before any new stuff from me, as I am totally tapped out from all the stuff I wrote over December.

Title: Long Day
Characters: Ozai, his furies, Zuko
Rating: PG
Word Count: 800+
Summary: Ozai feels every minute and hour of every day since his furies were stripped from him.
Author's Notes: This was originally written for the atlaland crossover challenge but I withdrew it when wuhdemah left on a trip to Ireland (after several weeks of doing nothing) without appointing an interim mod like she said she would. Don't feel like letting perfectly good Ozai angst languish.

Previous Aleratar pieces can be found here and here.


Long Day

***

It had been a long day. It was always a long day, because Ozai could not imagine anything more boring than making tea for people. The fact that his brother seemed to enjoy the Jasmine Dragon only proved that he was an idiot. But the day was over, and they had eaten, though food was still ashes in his mouth, and he wanted nothing more than to sit down and read until he fell asleep.

Then he would wake up to another long day.

Ozai crossed the cramped bedroom to his bookcase, flicking his will at the tiny fire-furies bound in the lamps to light up.

They remained dark, and he blinked away the momentary irritation making his eyes damp. He loathed his instinctive reaching for furies. He loathed that he couldn't turn it off, he couldn't make it stop, he couldn't get used to being the only person in the world who couldn't even operate basic technology because of THAT BOY-

"Iroh," he called out, a surge of pride going through him that he sounded only angry, "Can you come turn on these damn lamps?"

***

It was a long day. It had been three years of long days with no real rest - imprisonment in this pissant cell with its frightened guards. Too many days with nothing to do but try to call his furies back to him.

But the burning raven and the airy hawk never returned.

Ozai drifted in waking dreams during much of his imprisonment, simply because the four walls of the stone cell and its smaller cage of wood never changed. It made his eyes sting, too; this was not the sort of cell he should be imprisoned in. He should be bound in a stone coffin half-sunk in water to keep him from calling on his air and fire furies.

But he had no furies anymore.

He had nothing.

***

It was going to be a long day. The Comet would arrive this afternoon, and Ozai had so much to do before then. Abdicate, for one, so that Azula could take her place as the Firelord. Crown himself the Phoenix King. Ride the airships from the Fire Nation to the Earth Kingdom, which would take hours at least.

A sharp beak pressed through his hair, rearranging the strands to suit his air fury. He absently reached up and stroked it, aware of the courtiers double-taking. But everyone knew their Firelord had an air fury as well as a fire fury, so him petting something invisible was only a momentary startlement at best.

The raven ignited on his opposite shoulder, small today. In battle, both furies were gigantic birds, large enough to carry a man, but for something as unhurried as this, they preferred to be small.

He smiled and crooned to them both about the bloody death they would deliver to so many today.

***

It was a long day. A long, empty day, every minute and hour felt in the shift of sunlight crossing the floor, in the dustmotes hanging in the air. Ozai found he could not drift in memory. There was too much expectation hanging around the prison, too much excitement in his guards.

He wondered if he should be afraid. But even like this, even a furyless freak, he could not find it in himself to be truly afraid of anything. Wary, though, he could be wary.

He was wary when his son came to speak with him. Warier still when the boy's cassowary fury manifested itself, but then the flaming bird came over to nibble affectionately on the hem of Ozai's trousers.

Even now, even like this, fire furies loved him.

Absently, he reached to stroke its head as Zuko told him that he would be going to Ba Sing Se. His hand skimmed over its neck, and he jerked back with a hiss. Stared.

His hand was burnt.

***

It had been a long day. Even leaving Iroh to his own devices and sauntering off to explore Ba Sing Se had not made it any shorter. Perhaps, in a way, it had made things longer because there was no end to the city. It was massive and crowded, too pretty in the Upper Ring to be real, too far from the Lower Ring to walk there in half a day.

He had been able to fly once. Swiftly, though not the swiftest. But he had been able to call on his air fury, gather himself in its winds, and tumble into the endless blue of the sky.

Now all he had was stone under his feet and dust choking his breath.

Tomorrow would be another endless, lifeless day. Days, months, years stretched ahead of him, without spark of fire or breath of air.

Why continue on?

Because he was Ozai, and he would not make anyone's life easier by disappearing to be forgotten.

If he could not burn, if he could not fly, what of it? Many people could not, for how many had ever had furies as powerful as his? If peasants could live with weak furies, then he could survive without furies at all. Survive, thrive, live.

-End-

writing, series: avatar, au: aleratar, character: zuko, character: ozai

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