Pop Culture Junkie

“How do I look?” Feyre bounded down the townhouse stairs with undignified leaps, landing on the carpet in the foyer and twirling her skirts.

Rhys’s eyes roamed the room, looking everywhere but at the gossamer fabric. “You don’t have to wear that.”

“You don’t like it?” The muscles in her cheeks tightened, her grin as fixed as stone. “I thought it was traditional, but maybe I should change? I could wear the aubergine gown from the equinox.”

He frowned at a thread he’d pulled from his jacket and slipped it in his pocket. 

“Would it be better if I stayed home?” Maybe it was too soon. The transition had been hard enough in Velaris.

Rhys’s gaze landed on the hem of her skirt, where it fluttered around her ankles in two sheets of fabric split nearly to her hip. He let out a long breath. “It’s been a long time since you were under a mountain.”

“I visited the Hewn City two winters ago.”

“Not dressed like that.” His hands smoothed the fabric over his thighs. “Not with me.” His fingers began to pluck at the seams there. “I don’t see any reason you need to be… reminded.”

“Reminded of what? Of some games we played, ages ago?”

“They weren’t games.” His voice was brittle enough to snap. “I hurt you, and you hated me for it. Why relive it?”

“I didn’t hate you.”

“Of course you did.”

Her smile finally slid from her face, and she hated the petulant frown that took its place. “Don’t be dense. We both knew what was at stake. Even if I didn’t fully understand at the time, by the last trial—”

“I should have found some other way.” He smoothed the fabric of his pants once more. “It was a long time to be alone.”

“You could have called in the bargain.” She took a step closer and took one of his restless hands in hers, lifting each of his fingers one by one. “I wanted you to, you know.”

“You didn’t.”

“It was a long time for me to be alone, too.” Why hadn’t she admitted it to him? “I tried to do it myself, for a few years. But it’s not like I could write you a letter, and you never came to intercourt functions. You’ve always fascinated me.”

The lines of his mouth softened. “Fascinating, hmm?”

“Not to mention handsome.”

It was Rhys who stepped closer this time, pressing his lips to her brow and breathing in the scent of her shampoo. “I think you might be misremembering, darling. But I’ll accept the flattery”

“You deserve flattery.”

He kissed her temple and pulled her even closer, widening his stance in preparation to winnow. “You mean it?” 

Ozai’s prison is a strange place.

The room is stately, not overly ornate but with touches that could almost make one forget the room was buried leagues underground and divided by iron bars as thick as a man’s wrist.

Almost.

Katara knows whose boundless heart is responsible for the thick red woven rug, the full bookcase, the tapestries on the wall.

With a nod to the guard, she slips into the room.

Ozai’s pulse is steady but his blood is thick and sour - a stagnant, burned-ash taste.

The former Fire Lord regards her quietly a moment, then turns away to stare at the far corner of the room.

Katara’s face is frozen as ice, as tranquil as a still pool. She moves to stand before the bars, the rug on this side of them just as thick as the one in Ozai’s cell. There is an empty chair placed to the side of the room. Katara does not move toward it. Measured, she clasps her hands in front of her.

The layers of her kimono are heavy - the deep blue of an afternoon storm. Painted on the skirt are black-grey crags of volcano-built mountains, scattered with the white blossoms of cherry trees. On each hanging sleeve is a pelican, wings outstretched. Across the obi is a curling dragon in threads of silver. The land of the Fire Nation, cloaked in storm blue.

Her hair spills heavy down her back, except for the phoenix-tail, a mirror to the one her husband pulls up every morning. And on top of it sits a crown - silver and sharp, the shape of a half-moon.

She thinks perhaps they will stand here in silence forever.

It is the first time she has laid eyes upon her father-in-law.

“Where is my son,” he finally asks. No, demands.

There is a small hearth with a fire burning, through some magic engineering of Toph and the Fire Nation builders no doubt. Candles and torches flicker in the room, lending it a small amount of warmth.

Katara knows Ozai cannot bend. The wisdom of the Avatar made it so.

It does not mean she forgets his hands and what they have done.

Ozai’s eyes are dark and angry. She does not drop them as she takes a step closer. “I forbade him from coming back here.”

Ozai snorts, a flash of white teeth. Despite his still kingly manner, his captivity has left him unquiet. There are small spasms in his face, and his eyes do not stay in one place for long.

“You forbade him?” He is on his feet now, silk black slippers on a woven rug. His robes are bloodred and hemmed with gold. They match his bloodshot eyes. “The Fire Nation is truly fallen when a peasant commands the so-called Fire Lord.” She hears the echo of a voice long ago. “Or was my son a coward, and sent his bitch wife to snivel in his place?”

“I thought it was time we were properly introduced.”

Ozai sneers. With a jolt, Katara sees the family resemblance. She hates him, as much as she loves her husband.

“I know who you are. Don’t think because I am imprisoned down here that I do not hear the cries of my nation. You’re the lowborn whore who keeps my son in a thrall between her legs.”

Katara lets herself be as cold as the winter tundra. All at once she knows she was wise to never come here before. “Is that all you have, Ozai? I get called worse from the penny papers. But none dare call me such things to my face. No, in my presence they address me as Fire Lady Katara.”

Ozai spits, his eyes full of lightning. “My son was always weak. Not only did he give away the Empire his ancestors built, he allows filth like you to kneel beside the throne.”

Katara cocks her head, lets the crown on her head reflect in the firelight. “Oh, I don’t kneel. Zuko had a second one made, so I can sit beside him.”

Once, that look on his face would have meant a fiery death for all who beheld it. Now, Katara meets his stare, unafraid.

She has fought his daughter, and his son. Faced down his old loyal generals in trials and rooted out his warmongers from her court. It is one of the sweeter parts of her job - learning how to dominate selfish, evil men like him.

Ozai looks away. Katara can feel the jittery skip of his pulse. “I have nothing to say to you. Why do you pollute my room with your presence?”

“I can do whatever I wish, Ozai. I am the Fire Lady. You are my prisoner. You serve at my pleasure.”

“I serve no one!”

“No, you certainly never have. I wonder if there was ever one good thing you’ve done your entire life.” Katara ignores his rage, the pulsing vein in his forehead, the way he can’t decide whether to pace or tear at the bars with his hands. She allows him his tantrum. Captures a picture of him in her mind - the royal robes, the skin pale from lack of sunlight, the shifty, bulging eyes.

“He gave me permission, you know.”

“Permission?” The man growls.

“To kill you. If the need arose.”

He looks her up and down again, over the soft rounded shape of her robes, the silver brocade on her zori over white tabi, balanced gently on the carpet.

Ozai is a fool, so he sees no threat.

“We talk about it sometimes,” she continues. Most recently, lying in bed, touching silently as the shadows from the fire danced on the ceiling. Zuko had watched them a long time. Then he had faced her, eyes clear. Running a nation often led to these sorts of macabre bedtime topics. She had held his hand and he had been resolute. Decided and wholly sacrificial. As usual. “How to do it. Whether it’s best to leave you here forever, or just send a quiet assassin. Or we could have you paraded through the streets before dropping you into the ocean with a weight around your ankles.” She hopes it is obvious which are her ideas. “The Earth Nation delegates have been particularly creative in their suggestions over the years.”

Ozai seems paler. “How dare you threaten me.”

Katara sighs. She’s played with him long enough. “Zuko survived your assassination attempt, as I’m sure you know by now.” Ozai’s left eye twitches. He turns a little green. “Actually he’s rather annoyed that they singed his favorite robes.”

She watches him, the fire doused in his eyes.

It’s a struggle to stay calm like this. Katara has a hole inside of her chest - fifteen years of war, a childhood stolen from her. The broken, scarred world he had left behind for his child to clean up. And more recently, the searing fire aimed directly at Zuko and the look on his face before her water was crashing around them, before she could even think.

When it all begins to overflow, something takes hold of her, the deep well of anger that she is afraid sometimes has no bottom and no end. And it all begins with the man in front of her, scowling and petulant.

“Oh, you didn’t know?” She asks, amused. Katara is not above being petty. “Yes - one of the benefits of having a lowborn bitch of a wife is she is also a powerful waterbender. I’ve been fighting firebenders since I was fifteen years old - the second rate assassin you sent for him was almost insulting.”

She is surprised to see him wilt.

Strong shoulders drop as he grabs an iron bar of his cage in his hand, staring at it hard. She’s sure at one point he could have burned through them. Wonders what it feels like to have the bending pulled out like a bone.

She realizes this was it - that was the best he could do to scratch back at them - coordinating through walls and whispers. His time of influence is slipping away. And now he knows it.

Katara will not be moved. In her mind she holds the picture of her husband - his soft eyes, the white skin mottled by a wound that transformed him.

“This is the second time you have sent someone for Zuko’s blood. Tomorrow, you will be brought before the Fire Sages and made to stand trial.”

His face flushes red in the dark room. “I don’t answer to you. My people would revolt.”

“They are not your people anymore. They are mine, and I will care for them more than you or your ancestors ever did.”

Ozai paces like a tiger in a zoo. “Tell my son he is a coward, and brings shame upon himself by not passing the sentence himself.”

Katara breathes deep. Steps forward, close enough to feel the cold of the iron between them. Gently, she rests a hand on her stomach, the silver thread of a twisting dragon under her palm. “Zuko has other things to concern himself with. The Fire Nation will soon have an heir.”

Ozai is fast. Despite his years here, his hands still carry the remembrance of violence. They’re hard on her arms, fingers digging bruises into her skin. He pulls her tight against the unforgiving metal bars, bones forced against hard steel.

His breath is sour and his eyes are black. Murder is in them, in the hard promise of his hands. “You are the usurper of my throne. You would make a fool of my son and put a waterbender on my throne and laugh at my memory.” He pulls harder, and her forehead presses against metal. “You are a fool as well, thinking I am powerless without my bending.”

This far under the earth, it’s harder to sense the silver of the moon, the tides pulling to and from the ocean.

But not impossible. Katara is powerful.

“You don’t get to hurt me any longer,” Katara whispers, her eyes ablaze.

Ozai grunts. His eyes go wide. His muscles shake, and the vein in his neck bulges. With a cry, his fingers loosen their rough grip of her arm, peeling back to reveal wrinkled silk.

The large, looming man stumbles back, muscles twitching and awkward, like a marionette. His face is full of fear.

“What is this?” he screams, his face red.

With the gentle command of her fingers, the Fire Lady drops him into his upholstered chair and he rocks back in shock.

“Be thankful of my mercy. I could make you kneel. I could make you stick your head into the fire. But instead you will stand trial, in front of your former people and the world, as it should have been at the beginning. The Avatar will not intercede on your behalf, Ozai.”

Katara lets her heartbeat slow. He looks at her, all shock and feral rage. With steady hands she brushes out her silk robes. She wants to weep again for the child he tried to destroy with those hands. There are bruises on her arms she will heal before she returns, so her husband does not have to see.

It was worth it, though. She came to let him know who runs the Fire Nation. There’s a mother, crouching in the snow, whose memory still cries out for justice.

She walks away from the man who would destroy the world. But just before she calls the guards, she lets herself turn back and look at him one last time.

“You have hurt every person I have ever loved. The best thing you ever did for the world was to banish your son from your horrible presence. I thank Tui and La every night that the wide oceans carried him far, far away from you. And now? Our child will grow up in a world without you. She will only know a father who loves her, a father whose hands are only ever gentle. And you will never, ever be able to hurt her.” She looks at him one last time. She has done what she promised - to the little girl without a mother, to the child growing within. She has brought peace to the world. And there is no room for old monsters anymore.

“We will see you at your trial, Ozai.”