- Fascination -

It was a thing of monstrous beauty, gazing at a boy cleaning the blood off his sword.

She watched from the shade of the jungle leaves, the creek flowing past the sword's edge, red veins drifting lazily downstream. He glided the cloth against the blade as it sang with a sharp hiss.

There was something intriguing about how his shoulders sank, the hollow look in his eyes. He had been cleaning the same side of his blade for too long. He was somewhere else, lost within his mind.

And then he blinked, as if a painful spark had been lit within him, dropping the sword into the water, sucking the fresh cut on his finger.

She remembered him. She remembered the furious look in those eyes years ago, when the sun turned black, when phantom voices laced with lies plagued her dreams.

Unbridled fury, walled within a beguiling soul. And from such a cold, desolate place.

Azula would know in time what brought him to this remote corner of the Fire Nation. What fascinated her more was that distant look in his eyes.

"Is there a darkness within you?" she rasped softly, muffled by her mask. "Have you accepted it too?"

A/N:

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