The Concubine
###
Kya wakes in warm darkness. The man next to her in the bed still sleeps, his breath coming softly. She lies curled up as far away from him as she can, the blankets kicked off onto the floor. Only her hair protects her modesty, and she feels like she is baking even in her nakedness.
It is too hot in the Fire Nation.
She sits up, and the man in the bed shifts. She glances at him but he remains asleep. His fists are clenched, though, and she wonders what he's dreaming about.
She wonders if he ever dreams about the wife who left him. He must. She cannot understand him if he does not.
She does not think she understands Firelord Ozai even if he does.
The commander of the Southern Raiders gave her as a coronation gift, an "exotic beauty" untouched by any man in the Fire Nation. Well. That was certainly true. Still true, for the Firelord has never touched her, not once.
He wrapped her in his robe and sneered at the captain for the barbarity of giving a naked woman. His fingers brushed her skin, and the heat of his touch did not leap at all.
He loves the wife who left him, loves her beyond all reason, and Kya is nothing compared to that woman.
All the court saw him wrap her in his robes, though. They remembered his father and his love of exotic women, and so Kya has become the Firelord's concubine. The servants pamper her during the day, wash her hair and oil her body, clothe her in beautiful garments of silk and lace, arrange her hair, drape her in jewelry.
Present her to Ozai as the sun sets.
Who does not touch her.
She is just fine with that, really.
She is less fine with the way her heart goes out to him. He can never go further than stripping her. Something breaks in his eyes, and his expression becomes mixed desperation and pain as he stares at her nudity. It makes her want to take him in her arms and stroke his hair. Tell him to cry. Let the pain out.
He is the Firelord. She should smother him in his sleep, free her people from a hundred years of suffering, spare them from another hundred years.
She can't do that anymore than he can touch her.
-End-