MfWAT: You Are Dead to Me
Memories from Western Air Temple
Chapter Title: You Are Dead to Me
Characters: Zuko, Ozai
Arc: Comet Arc
Setting: after We Are Strangers to Each Other, before Your Spirits Beside Me
Rating: T
Warnings: POV shifting, poetry
Summary: Their history is one of violence, and so shall their future be.
The first thing about Zuko Ozai had ever noticed were the boy’s eyes. They had taken on their true color as soon as he had been born, a molten gold that Ozai could find by looking in the mirror. Gold was the color of kings and Ozai had been young and optimistic. He had thought Ursa had birthed a born ruler, someone like himself.
Further down the line it became clear that the only thing Zuko had inherited from his father was the eye color. Everything else came from Ursa. The soft panes of the boy’s face that became only more prominent as he grew were as close to his mother’s as a male face could be. His mouth moved just like Ursa’s would when he frowned or smiled.
Ursa had probably seen it way before Ozai. Perhaps that was why she had treasured the boy so. The woman had cultivated Zuko into her perfect legacy. And Ursa had devoted all of her love to that legacy, there was nothing else, no one else, that Ursa loved more and maybe that was why even the feel of her son reminded Ozai of her; Ursa had spent years pouring a bit of herself into their eldest child. And it was showing especially now when Ozai looked down at the defiant face, the disagreeable scowl being the exact same as the last expression he had ever seen on his wife’s face. Zuko was the splitting image of that proud, stupid woman.
Zuko even sounded like Ursa when he spoke, his words reminding Ozai of the last time he had seen the woman: “Is there any part of you that’s good or just?”
Fire can destroy in a myriad of ways.
Blood was roaring in Zuko’s ears so loud that a volcano could probably erupt without him hearing a thing. Still the youth forced himself to lift his head enough to glare at the looming form of his father. He wouldn’t stay down, not until he was completely unable to get up again.
His entire body ached and his right arm wasn’t moving anymore but he still managed to lift himself up from his lying down position to his knees, fixing his best glare on to aim at Ozai’s face.
“Is nothing enough for you?” Zuko’s lips were forming words but he wasn’t sure if he was able to give voice to them. He drew strength from what he was fighting for, from what he was trying to prevent. “You’d burn down a continent without remorse.” He gritted his teeth together and forced his voice to audibility. “Is there any part of you that’s good or just!”
Flames can disfigure a person, an object or a landscape beyond recognition.
They were the almost exact same words that Ozai had heard before, almost the exact same last words he had received from Ursa. Only, Ursa had asked if he was capable of being decent. It wasn’t much to ask for, but then again, Ursa had always been modest.
It had to be Iroh’s influence on the boy, Ozai mused, for Zuko to ask for such grand things. Justice was easy enough, each man made their own brand of justice that they lived by. But what was ‘good’ really? It was an ideal that was spoken of in stories but one incredibly scarce in the real world. Ursa had been ‘good’, but Ozai had never found the capability for that. He’d never seen any use for it.
“I had her to be good for me.”
A small ember is enough to ruin something previously pristine and perfect.
He still couldn’t hear anything but the high pitched whine that echoed in his head and tried to tell him that he was injured, that he shouldn’t be getting up, but Zuko didn’t need his hearing to understand the answer he was receiving.
The words Ozai formed were nothing but a buzz to Zuko, but Zuko wasn’t interested in words. Words had always been superficial in his family. Zuko watched Ozai’s face carefully, paying attention to every change in the man’s expression.
Nothingness. That was what Zuko saw on the man’s face. Ozai had no conception of goodness and he obviously didn’t even care that he didn’t. Did Ozai care about anything? Had there ever been any thing, any person, that had held worth to the man? Zuko couldn’t help but think about his mother and spat out bitterly: “Did you even love her?”
No matter how much potential for new growth it has, a burned field is still merely ashes.
How like him, Ozai found himself thinking, to ask such a thing from him. But the answer didn’t matter anymore, did it? Perhaps it never had.
Ozai caught Zuko’s hair in one fist and let fire form in his other hand. The boy would never learn it seemed. Perhaps another scar would help him see sense, or perhaps not. But at least the face would stop looking so much like hers.
“Not enough,” Ozai spoke softly as he angled the boy’s head properly. “Never enough.”
Not enough to spare the woman’s one legacy.
To burn is an agony; it is a prolonged pain when your skin is slowly eaten away by heat and light.
&
Author’s Notes: This chapter got a bit delayed due to technical difficulties, but it’s here now. Also, the next chapter’s going to be a longer one, so it’ll probably take two weeks instead of just one for me to update again.
More Memories from Western Air Temple
Chapter Title: You Are Dead to Me
Characters: Zuko, Ozai
Arc: Comet Arc
Setting: after We Are Strangers to Each Other, before Your Spirits Beside Me
Rating: T
Warnings: POV shifting, poetry
Summary: Their history is one of violence, and so shall their future be.
The first thing about Zuko Ozai had ever noticed were the boy’s eyes. They had taken on their true color as soon as he had been born, a molten gold that Ozai could find by looking in the mirror. Gold was the color of kings and Ozai had been young and optimistic. He had thought Ursa had birthed a born ruler, someone like himself.
Further down the line it became clear that the only thing Zuko had inherited from his father was the eye color. Everything else came from Ursa. The soft panes of the boy’s face that became only more prominent as he grew were as close to his mother’s as a male face could be. His mouth moved just like Ursa’s would when he frowned or smiled.
Ursa had probably seen it way before Ozai. Perhaps that was why she had treasured the boy so. The woman had cultivated Zuko into her perfect legacy. And Ursa had devoted all of her love to that legacy, there was nothing else, no one else, that Ursa loved more and maybe that was why even the feel of her son reminded Ozai of her; Ursa had spent years pouring a bit of herself into their eldest child. And it was showing especially now when Ozai looked down at the defiant face, the disagreeable scowl being the exact same as the last expression he had ever seen on his wife’s face. Zuko was the splitting image of that proud, stupid woman.
Zuko even sounded like Ursa when he spoke, his words reminding Ozai of the last time he had seen the woman: “Is there any part of you that’s good or just?”
Fire can destroy in a myriad of ways.
Blood was roaring in Zuko’s ears so loud that a volcano could probably erupt without him hearing a thing. Still the youth forced himself to lift his head enough to glare at the looming form of his father. He wouldn’t stay down, not until he was completely unable to get up again.
His entire body ached and his right arm wasn’t moving anymore but he still managed to lift himself up from his lying down position to his knees, fixing his best glare on to aim at Ozai’s face.
“Is nothing enough for you?” Zuko’s lips were forming words but he wasn’t sure if he was able to give voice to them. He drew strength from what he was fighting for, from what he was trying to prevent. “You’d burn down a continent without remorse.” He gritted his teeth together and forced his voice to audibility. “Is there any part of you that’s good or just!”
Flames can disfigure a person, an object or a landscape beyond recognition.
They were the almost exact same words that Ozai had heard before, almost the exact same last words he had received from Ursa. Only, Ursa had asked if he was capable of being decent. It wasn’t much to ask for, but then again, Ursa had always been modest.
It had to be Iroh’s influence on the boy, Ozai mused, for Zuko to ask for such grand things. Justice was easy enough, each man made their own brand of justice that they lived by. But what was ‘good’ really? It was an ideal that was spoken of in stories but one incredibly scarce in the real world. Ursa had been ‘good’, but Ozai had never found the capability for that. He’d never seen any use for it.
“I had her to be good for me.”
A small ember is enough to ruin something previously pristine and perfect.
He still couldn’t hear anything but the high pitched whine that echoed in his head and tried to tell him that he was injured, that he shouldn’t be getting up, but Zuko didn’t need his hearing to understand the answer he was receiving.
The words Ozai formed were nothing but a buzz to Zuko, but Zuko wasn’t interested in words. Words had always been superficial in his family. Zuko watched Ozai’s face carefully, paying attention to every change in the man’s expression.
Nothingness. That was what Zuko saw on the man’s face. Ozai had no conception of goodness and he obviously didn’t even care that he didn’t. Did Ozai care about anything? Had there ever been any thing, any person, that had held worth to the man? Zuko couldn’t help but think about his mother and spat out bitterly: “Did you even love her?”
No matter how much potential for new growth it has, a burned field is still merely ashes.
How like him, Ozai found himself thinking, to ask such a thing from him. But the answer didn’t matter anymore, did it? Perhaps it never had.
Ozai caught Zuko’s hair in one fist and let fire form in his other hand. The boy would never learn it seemed. Perhaps another scar would help him see sense, or perhaps not. But at least the face would stop looking so much like hers.
“Not enough,” Ozai spoke softly as he angled the boy’s head properly. “Never enough.”
Not enough to spare the woman’s one legacy.
To burn is an agony; it is a prolonged pain when your skin is slowly eaten away by heat and light.
&
Author’s Notes: This chapter got a bit delayed due to technical difficulties, but it’s here now. Also, the next chapter’s going to be a longer one, so it’ll probably take two weeks instead of just one for me to update again.
More Memories from Western Air Temple