Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ Owned by Fire ❯ Burnt to Ashes - III ( Chapter 6 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer:
Avatar: The last Airbender and all the characters therein are the intellectual property of Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and I, like all the other fans, only get to play with them every once in a while.
Summary:
Grief will tear her apart if she can't come to terms with the past.
The Phoenix might be reborn from the Ashes…but before that, he will burn.
Author's note:
Pairing Ozai/OC.
Het.
Set about 3 months after the end of the original series but contains flashbacks that go back as far back as 7 years before the beginning of the series.
Sequel to the previous chapters, but following "Burnt to Ashes – part I and II", it can also be read as a stand-alone.
Warnings:
Use of drugs, some violence and non-con. NC-17.
Also: Extensive use of flashbacks and some creative use of grammatical tenses, using the past tense for current events (mostly) and the present tense for things in the past. Just now, for Kian, things that happened in the past are a lot more vivid then what is happening in the present…
Note: I got artwork for chapter 2 as a gift for my birthday from the incredible Adorna. You can find "Loss" over at my deviantart account.

IMPORTANT :
Remember how I said that this was NOT death-fic?
...Uhm….
…..This might not be true for Original Characters appearing from this chapter onward…..

SPECIAL THANKS
Special thanks go to my beloved Sunshader, who normally hates this type of story, but who has read and critiqued every chapter so far, giving me important input and insights that I needed in order to make this story better.
Another special thanks goes to ArrayePL, who gave the rough version of this chapter a quick once-over to make sure that, after all this time, I was still on track with everything. Thank you!

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She stared angrily at the corpse laid out on the stone slab in the centre of the room and pulled the blankets tighter around her. A shiver ran over her body, and she cursed silently, well aware that the chill she felt had nothing to do with the actual temperature of the room.

There were so many things she still wanted to say to him. She wanted to yell at him that "Mine" had been nothing but a pretty lie which he told both of them, not worth the breath he used to utter it.

She wanted to kick him in the shins and tell him that her brother and the people of her tribe have a far better grasp on what calling something "yours" meant.

How often had she watched her brother forgo sleep and food, driving himself to the point of utter exhaustion and beyond, only so he could make sure his people were fed and warm and safe?

She had been away from home for most of her life, but she still remembered the lean season, when the grown-ups would make do with nearly no food, so that at least the children would not go hungry.

Like all boys, her brother would usually whine and pout if he missed as much as a single meal and he wasn't above begging their mother for a scrap of seal blubber jerky here and there between meals either.

However, the first year he and Bato were counted as adults, they made a contest out of it to see whose ribs showed more prominently after they had gone with little more than seaweed soup and water for weeks on end. The next year, they had joked about whose tummy had grown more hollow and the year after that it had been loose teeth. Whether it was on a hunt or a scouting mission when Fire Nation Navy had been sighted, there was no end to the lengths her brother would go to in order to see his family and Tribe cared for and protected. And why? Because the Watertribe was Hakoda's.

And the things the Ozai had called his own? She snorted contemptuously, her hands balled into fists.

All the people the Firelord had called his had known little but suffering and misery by his hand.

His son – burned and banished.

His wife – exiled.

His father – murdered.

His brother – betrayed.

His nation – its' rivers and soil poisoned, many of its' sons and daughters dead or maimed in that senseless war.

The lands he had wanted to claim for himself? Thanks to the Fire Nation, they were full of ghosts, starving refugees and burnt out villages.

"Mine"? No, he didn't have the right to call anything or anyone that.

Fire Lord Ozai had owned nothing but shadows and ashes.

She wondered if, in his dark cell, he had realized that?

She thinks of the rumours she has heard at court, stories of snide remarks and haughty sneers, coming from the tarnished icon of a disappearing era and then tries to imagine something like understanding and regret starting to fill those golden eyes and words like "I'm sorry" coming from those lips.

Not able to help herself, she starts laughing at the very thought, the rasping, choking sound echoing hollowly from the stone walls. No, it's not likely that he realized.

Once her laughter has died down, she can't help but muse on how his belief in his Nation's superiority and its' right to subjugate the world was as unshakeable as the mountains, as solid as granite.

There was nothing that could change his mind. Nothing.

Not the reports of rebellions small and large flaring up again and again, in new established colonies as well as in the ones his grandfather had established.

Not the embittered resistance his armies encountered from the Watertribes and the Earth Kingdom, even a hundred years after Sozin had started the war.

Not the rising number of dissidents and critical voices within his own Nation that he had to silence violently before they reached the ears of the masses.

Not the fact that of all his family, only Azula, fervently, fanatically devoted Azula, remained by his side.

The persistence with which Ozai had held on to his convictions would have put a rock to shame.

He should have been born an earthbender.

From seemingly nowhere, an image pops up in her mind: Ozai clothed in robes of dark emerald green, with the hems trimmed in light brown.

The silence is broken again, this time not by harsh laughter, but by a set of mad giggles.

The colours would have suited him.

It takes a something like an eternity for her to calm down again, and even after she has stopped giggling, she was left with a hiccup, eyes that burned and stung and the memory of the day she found proof that once, he must have had eyes that could see the world unclouded by visions of conquest and glory:
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A rainy afternoon, a few weeks after he considered her housebroken enough to grant her free movement of their living quarters. After making sure there are no servants around to spy on her, she gathers up enough courage to peruse the contents of his work desk, well knowing that if he finds out, she will be in for some severe punishment.


At first there is nothing she hasn't expected: plans for enlarging the factories where his battle tanks are manufactured, files of high-ranking officers due for promotion, blue-prints for a prison that is suited for the containment of earthbenders, calculations of tax-levies for newly conquered territories.

While she still tries to figure out if there is some way she can make use of the information she has found, she keeps searching his desk.

There's a drawer at the bottom that's stuck. Curious to find something so ill-maintained in the home of a man so hell-bent on making sure that everything works the way he wants it to, she draws all moisture from the wood to make it shrink a bit and once she has done so, it opens just fine.

Inside, slightly dusty, she finds a series of sketches and paintings.

It's a wild mix of portraits, landscapes and building plans, one more lovely than the next.

She recognizes a younger version of General Iroh, lounging on a bench in the gardens, his arm slung around a cute young woman who is slightly taller than him. They're smiling fondly at each other.

There's a portrait of a woman, slumping slightly in the cushions that prop her up in bed. Her hair is dishevelled and there are dark rings under her eyes…but her smile is as radiant and shining as the sun as she cradles her newborn baby.

There are also detailed plans for a town-hall, gardens, a market-place, a university….there's even a plan for a house of healing and as she studies it, she excitedly chews her lip as she thinks about how much fun it would be to practice in a place that had an attached herb-garden, a pharmacy and such extensive treatment facilities, including hot and cold water pools. In one drawing, she recognizes a range of glaciers that are about two weeks travel from her village. Her heart goes tight with longing as she marvels at the regal perfection of the icy cliffs, perfectly captured with just a few strokes of the brush.

Smiling and giddy with excitement, she studies the artist's mark at the bottom of one of the pictures and nearly drops it when she and finds that it is signed with the name of the man who has enslaved her. All of the pictures are. Hands trembling, she goes through the drawings once more, looking for clues on how a man so callous and cold could paint pictures that hold so much warmth and beauty.

It is not quite unexpected when she finds that, going by the dates, the pictures are quite old. The newest of them, the sketch of the young mother, was done about ten years ago. The picture of the glacier was done a mere two weeks before her unlucky first encounter with her captor, over at the garrison where she had tried to steal information on the other waterbenders.

The ink on the oldest pictures is starting to fade in places.

Hands still shaking and throat tight, she carefully replaces the drawings in the drawer and shuts them away once more.

That night, as he orders her to lie down beside him, she reaches out and gingerly, almost tenderly, traces the outlines of his face, trying to find something there of the man he must have been once upon a time. It's the first time she touches Ozai without him having to order her to do so and the surprise on his face makes him seem as young as on the day they first met.
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A few days after she finds the drawings, she makes another unexpected discovery. He has just returned from a particularly long meeting, in a foul mood and flexing his shoulders in a way that tell her that his neck muscles have tensed up to a point where they are so tight, they could double as mooring rope for one of his warships.

The games he plays with her when he's in a mood like that tend to be on the rougher side of comfort and it's something she'd love to avoid. So, shyly and head downcast, like a good little slave, she offers him a backrub.

Grouchy and snarling, he agrees, flinging shirt and robes into a corner and flopping down on the sun-warmed tiles of the garden's patio, one of his favourite spots.

She sets to work on his back and soon, with the help of a bit of secretively used waterbending, the cramped, rock-hard muscles become soft as warmed butter beneath her fingers. As he relaxes, a low, rumbling sound of utter comfort starts deep in his chest and runs all the way up her hands and arms, so utterly in contrast with his usual arrogant and aggressive demeanour that she can't help but snicker. He retaliates for the perceived mockery by tickling her until she runs out of breath and then some. Their laughter mingles in the late afternoon breeze, joining in its mellow rhythm.

Considering how desperately she wants to get away from him, it's nearly funny how, from then on, she keeps finding things that make her want to stay by his side.
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His rare, unguarded laughter…sitting in the cold stone hall, huddled in her blankets, it was something she still craved, like a drug the withdrawal of which left her shaking and nauseous. But when had she heard it for the last time? And where?

She couldn't remember. Frustrated at her lack of ability to recall something so important, so vital to her life, she started picking at the threads of the blanket around her. How about the last time he touched her with gentleness and care?

...No, she can't pinpoint that either.

The blanket had little with which it could resist her nimble fingers and the first thread came out. Its' silky texture felt alien in her hand.

...When did he actually talk with her for the last time? And about what? She finds no answer.

Despite the blankets, there was a chill seeping into her very bones.

She continued to pick at her memories as well as at the blanket.

In the fabric, a small hole grew, as if a moth had nibbled on it.

She wiggled her toes, trying to warm them up a bit.

...When did he smile at her for the last time?

It was some time after he broke her, she was sure. She remembered him softly whispering something to her, a warm hand on her cheek and a look in his eyes that held a silent request, almost a plea…but the details are hazy, beyond her grasp. She doesn't know what he said anymore, or why he was talking to her.

She was still plucking away at the blanket and the hole she had made was now large enough for an arrowhead to pass. How could it be that such thick and warm blankets were but a flimsy shield against the cold that was now making her teeth chatter?

...When had the man she loved disappeared for good?

Her breath formed milky clouds in the air as she continued to search her memories.

She was aware that just like the blanket, she was coming apart. The past was eating away at her, tearing her to pieces. Finding an answer to her questions might be the one thing that could save her sanity.

Hmmmm...Around the borders of a Watertribe village, the tribes' people would set up large carved ice-blocks. If someone got caught by a blizzard outside the village border, they still had a chance of finding their way home if they found one of those. The carvings would point them in the right direction; would tell them in which direction home could be found.

Right now, she needed a memory that would serve her in the same way. She needed to find her way back to the man she loved…and back to the place where she had lost him forever.

It took a while, but finally, she stumbled onto something that led her way.
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Their first shared meal. It had been in the early afternoon, on the day after their first night together.

The sun had painted the room in cozy golden tones, but she had felt as cold then as she did now:

They lay in bed, side by side, silent, each of them caught in their own thoughts in the aftermath of their last bout between the sheets. She turns away from him, not looking at him as best as her chains will allow her.

He is stretched out leisurely beside her, toying with a lock of her hair.

The quiet of the afternoon is broken when her stomach growls like an attacking tiger-seal. He chuckles and rises from the bed, leaving the room only to return moments later with a tray laden with grilled meats, rice and succulent vegetables.

Despite her desperate situation, the prospect of eating something makes her mouth water.

…..And then he kills all her desire for food by informing her that from now on, even though she is still allowed to drink whatever the servant bring her, she is only allowed to eat what he feeds her with his own hands.

As he offers her the first bit of succulent meat, she spits on the floor and then presses her lips tightly together, glaring at him.

Of course, he doesn't let that pass. His grip on her cheeks, with which he forces her to open her mouth, is unrelenting, and he pushes some roast chicken past her lips. Then he covers her mouth with his fingers and promises her a second spanking if she doesn't chew and swallow. Her backside is still smarting from the first one, a few hours ago, and so she obeys.
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The seasons pass and some time in their second year, a few months after she has found his old sketches, there comes an evening where he weaves a tasty morsel teasingly back and forth in front of her nose and she finds herself trying to snatch it with her teeth. When she succeeds in capturing her prize AND splattering him with sauce in the process, she has to laugh so hard that she doesn't really mind when he pins her down and marks her body with a series of light nips and bites to remind her of her table manners.
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Just a few weeks afterwards, he feeds her slices of ripe mango with his hands. She begins licking the juice from his fingers, unwilling to let a single drop of the delicious nectar escape. He gasps, the sound abrupt and feral. Still licking, she looks up into his eyes, startled by the sound. She watches his eyes fill with heat as he watches her.

Wordlessly, he splays his fingers and holds them out to her, so she can reach in between them with her tongue. Her eyes fixed on his, it flicks out, as if it had a mind of its own, laving a slow, moist path down the crease between his knuckles. His eyelids flutter shut and the low, rolling moan that is torn from his lips sounds different from the usual sounds he makes when he takes her to bed. It sounds….unguarded. Unintentional. Vulnerable.
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In their fourth year, on a warm summer afternoon, she is comfortably curled up on a couch in the living room by the rock garden, weaving brightly coloured silk threads into a bracelet and enjoying the sun that's coming in from the open terrace doors, when she hears footsteps approaching from behind.

One set firm and swift, the other more light footed and quite hurried. Grinning, she sets her unfinished work down, the blue and purple coils making pretty patterns on the dark red of the couch's upholstery, and slides to her feet. Before she can turn though, strong arms slip around her and she finds herself pulled towards the backrest of the couch again and lifted over it.

He cradles her in his arms and before she can do as much as protest, he bends down and kisses her just behind the ear, his beard tickling her throat. She giggles and tries to push him away, but he just holds fast and nips at her earlobe and she relents, melting into his touch.

"Mmmhhh….you smell good. Edible." His teeth graze her throat.

"Nah. I'm full of tiny, pointy bones. You'd just choke." She stretches upward and places a kiss of her own on his chin.

He sets her down and lightly smacks her bottom, grinning.

"Good thing I brought something else to eat then."

The delicious aromas of roast duck and spicy ginger waft through the air, escaping from the platter with food, carried by the palace servant who accompanied the Firelord. Her mouth waters and she grins up at her lover. She loves roast duck with ginger and he knows it.

"Feed me?"

He chuckles and kisses the top of her head. "Always, my sweet."
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Down in the catacombs she slipped from her bench, shivering and shaking so hard she was no longer able to hold herself upright. Curled in on herself, her cheek pressed against the cold tiles and breath ghosting over the floor, leaving it covered with a thin sheen of ice, she knew she was close.

"Always" he had told her on that sunny afternoon…..and even months later, after she had rebelled, after he had broken her….he had been true to his word.

He still fed her.

But why had she been so used to the servants feeding her by the time he and his fleet left the capital?

Somewhere, "Always" had ended; somewhere, he had broken his promises for good.

...It is hard enough to remember what she had for lunch this day last week. Trying to remember the meals she shared with Ozai in the years after her rebellion is like trying to dig a new well with a shovel made of wet clay. And yet, she doggedly retraces her steps, taking clues from whatever other little details she remembers.
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It has been a year, maybe two since he banished his son.

A year or two since he beat her bloody and burned her to punish her for her rebellion.

A year or two since her mind and heart found solace in a stuporous haze that leaves her little more than a clockwork doll; pretty to look at, with all the right responses at just the right moment, but empty and lifeless.

Just like their bouts in bed, mealtimes have become short and practical affairs. He brings reports to the table and will read them while eating, hardly looking at her as he stuffs food in her mouth. There are no more shared conversations as they eat, no teasing, no more laughter. Just the noise of spoons and chopsticks clinking on porcelain and pages rustling as he goes through his papers.

He is busy. Very busy. He returns to their quarters late at night and leaves early in the morning.

It gets worse each day and for a month or so, he suddenly is so taken up by the demands the running of the war and of his country make on him, that he almost seems to forget about her entirely.

He is even too busy to take her to bed.

Most of the time, during those days, he certainly is too busy to remember about feeding her.

For the first week or so, hunger is a dull, gnawing ache at the pit of her stomach. Caught in the muddled dream her life has become, she hardly cares. Whether she goes hungry or not, whether she lives or she dies…it is as important as a twig snapping in a forest that has been uprooted by a ferocious storm.

After a week or so, the hunger pangs recede, leaving her feeling light-headed and dizzy, which is only a marginal deterioration compared to her usual state of mind. The only thing really keeping her alive is the water and the honeyed tea the servants bring her.

After a bit more than a month things quieten down again.

It is late at night and he has returned to their bedroom. He does not look at her while he undresses in the dim candlelight, but as he prepares to go to bed, with a jerk of his chin, he motions her to come to him.

As she lies down on the soft covers, he is already untying the laces of her robe, fingers rough and impatient. His hands glide over her flesh, his movements fast and mechanical. He strokes her hips, her shoulders, her breasts….bends down to kiss her…and then, suddenly, stops.

The candles flare to life and she blinks as the bright light blinds her.

His features are twisted in a rictus of disgust as he stares down at her, taking in her far too sharp cheekbones, the prominent ridges of her ribs, the knobbly protrusions of her hip-bones and the stick-like quality of her arms and legs.

Spitting out a curse, he gets off the bed and heads for the door, dragging her behind him by a too thin wrist. Janking the door open, he shoves her through. She is too weak to stand and drops into an untidy heap on the floor. As always, there is a gaggle of servants waiting beyond, ready to carry out his every whim.

"Feed her." he snarls. "The bitch is of no use to me like that, with her bones sticking out all over the place." The he slams the door shut.

It takes more than half a month of careful feeding and grooming until she has regained her former shape and is returned to his bedchamber. By then, it has become solely the servants' duty to feed her.

She never shares a meal with him again.
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As she lay on the stone floor, not that far away from his cold dead body, every breath hurt as if a stone fist had smashed her ribs. And yet, she kept on breathing.

One breath. Another.

She would live.

She had found her answer.

She should have known the moment General Iroh had asked her whether there had been any good left in his brother in the end and she had replied "No" without thinking about it even for a heartbeat.

The man she had loved had died. Not four days ago, but long, long before that.

Even though he still breathed, still had a heartbeat, he had been dead.

He disappeared from her life…not on the night he broke her, but on the night where he forgot for good that she was a living, breathing human being.

The night he stopped feeding her.

That had been the moment where "Always" split and shattered, the moment where all her dreams and hopes turned out to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.

That was the night Ozai died.

Her lover, her friend…the other half of her soul….The irony that she has only now begun to grieve for him, years after she lost him, is choking her, turning each breath into a wave of fire that ravages her lungs. Yet, she keeps on breathing.

She coughs and spits, finally ridding herself of the dreams of a bright future which she harboured in the last few weeks. They were but empty echoes of dreams that faded into nothingness a long time ago. Deceiving mirages of cool water in a deadly dry desert.

The now all-to-clear knowledge brings her cold comfort.

Finally, breathing becomes easier. He left her behind. And now she has no other choice left but to say her final good-byes….or follow him into the darkness.

Right now, more than anything, she doesn't want him to have been the most important thing in her life.

He doesn't deserve that.

Nobody who so recklessly wasted the life he was given deserves that.

He had a choice.

He could have chosen to remain the man he was.

The man who painted.

The man who laughed and loved and who cared about those that were his.

Instead, he decided to become the embodiment of someone else's dream and to turn the world into a living nightmare.

He does not deserve her grief and so she will take back what is hers.

Teeth clenched and hands curled into fists so tightly the nails bite into her flesh, she gets back on her feet. Her knees are shaking.

Despite her resolve to see this finally through, she hesitates to take that first step.

The thought of sitting down again and maybe not finding the strength to get up again, ever, makes her teeth chatter until they rattle.

It ends up terrifying her enough to get moving.

One step towards the body. Her breath comes in panicked little gasps.

Two steps. Stormy seas, she is still dragging her feet, but at least she is moving.

Three. She pauses, breathing in and out. In and out. Slowing down. She can do this.

Four steps.

Five.

Six. Pause again. Wipe cheeks dry, re-learn how to breathe.

Seven.

Eight. Her fingers find the edge of the grey stone slab, its' surface rough beneath her fingers. Her eyes are looking elsewhere, trying to find something to fix onto as her world tips, spins and falls.

She grasps the edge with both hands now, looking down at them, marvelling at how her knuckles are white as snow and how they compliment the white robes they have wrapped his body in. His hand is right beside hers. It's colour is a mottled mix of whites and greys on top and purplish-red patches at the bottom….not unusual for someone several days dead.

She fixes her eyes on the hand, too scared to look up at his face. She contemplates the smooth curve of his nails, the ridges of his knuckles, the tips of his fingers.

There is a scar missing, right by the thumb.

There…...is…...a scar…...missing…...

She blinks, not trusting her eyes.

The scar DOESN'T miraculously reappear.

It's only a tiny one. It should be next to the knuckle. She bit him there, the first time he tried to feed her grapes. The tang of his blood was sweet and coppery in her mouth. The scar is gone. Faintly she wonders if it's possible that some people lose their scars when they die?

She looks up to his face, slightly shaking her head, the continuous back and forth movement an echo of the receding dizziness. She reaches out to the corpse and strokes back the hair, fingers careful, searching. A frown creeps in and settles between her brows.

Death can marginally change a person's features and no one would comment on the strange laxity of a deceased person's face. After all, the straight nose, the angle of the chin, the shape of his eyes, the mouth…they are all as they should be. The man lying on the stone slab looks very much like Ozai.

But…there is another tiny scar missing at the edge of one of the eyebrows, where she had tried to scratch his eyes out in the second year. Nobody knew about that, since he had made her heal it directly after….and then whipped her until she was black and blue.

A small birthmark above the left ear, well hidden by Ozai's hair, is gone too. The slight bump in his jaw on the right side that could be felt, but not seen, the remains of a not perfectly healed fracture he had received in a fight with a Water Tribe warrior when he was 18, wasn't there either.

Along the lines of his cheekbones there is the stubble of a few shaved hairs where no hair should have been growing in the first place.

Death, especially days old death, can change a man's features somewhat. But no, it does not erase scars, nor does it change the pattern of the way a person's hair grows or smooth the little bumps of ill healed fractures.

It's not him.

It's NOT HIM.

Hands shaking, knees weak like butter, breath coming in rapid little gasps, she stumbles back to the bench, falling twice and gathering herself back up again. Once she reaches the bench, she sits down, hard. Her knees smart from where she fell and her heart beats as fast as the wings of a hummingbird, but she hardly notices.

Sitting down, she can't take her eyes away from the body of the man who had replaced her lover, her nightmare.

It wasn't him. It wasn't Ozai.

Ozai was out there, somewhere.

Someone had broken him out of prison and they had planned it well enough so that nobody had noticed.

None of the prison guards knew Ozai well enough to tell the difference.

The people tending to the dead, washing them and laying them out weren't intimately acquainted with the deceased either.

Even Iroh and Lord Zuko couldn't be faulted for being fooled.

Neither of them had seen Ozai up close for years. And even if they had, the differences were tiny….nothing anybody but a lover was likely to notice.

A lover. Her. But if it hadn't been for her little tea-session with Iroh, her attendance at this wake would have been supremely unlikely. The exchange would have gone unnoticed.

Ozai was still out there, somewhere.

Unless….her mind was playing tricks on her again?

She went back to the dead man and checked her findings. No, the scars, the birthmark…still missing. Hair pattern still wrong.

She returned to her seat. Got up again and checked the miniscule disparities again. Still there.

Paced around the room. Returned to the stone slab and looked again. Discreetly checked some more places. Found more differences.

It REALLY wasn't him.

He was still out there. In secret.

She felt faint.

All her grief, all her anger, all her desperation….the last four days had nearly destroyed her, torn her apart.

And yes, the man she had loved was dead. Well and truly dead.

But the Phoenix King was still out there. Alive.
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The doctor's hands were shaking as he let the injection apparatus drop into the metal bowl sitting on the nightstand. The needle clanked as it hit the bowl, while the bladder folded in on itself with a near soundless little puff.

He took a deep breath and looked down at his patient, who had slipped into unconsciousness again. It was a blessing that the man was in prime shape, otherwise the drugs that kept him deeply asleep might have killed him.

Of course they had to time the injections so that at least once a day, their effect wore off a bit. Even as strong and healthy as his patient was, letting him go for days on end without anything to drink was likely to destabilize his condition sufficiently to kill him. So they let the patient come a bit awake each day…just enough so that the man wouldn't choke on the sweetened tea and the chicken broth that they dribbled into his mouth.

Getting the dosage of the drugs right had been very, very tricky. For someone who, as rumour had it, was no longer a firebender, his patient certainly was metabolizing the drugs as fast as a normal firebender would.

The doctor dabbed at his sweat covered brow with his sleeve. His nose wrinkled in distaste as he got a whiff of his own body odour. He hadn't changed his clothes in the last four days and his usually pristine robes were spattered with the dried remains of herbal concoctions and (he shivered) droplets of royal blood.

Being the personal physician of one of the richest merchants in the Fire Nation, if not the entire world, had always been a bit….challenging, and while he sure had appreciated being able to conduct his medical research without the usual constraints his peers were subjected to by the law, the pressure he was under right now was a becoming a bit more than even he was comfortable with. Plus, he had a tendency to get a bit sea-sick and the roiling of the ship certainly wasn't doing his queasy stomach any favours.

Normally, he would have vented some of his frustration by giving his unconscious patient a solid kick in the ribs, but no, with this one, it was NOT something he could afford to do.

When he was younger, his most burning ambition had been to become the Firelord's personal physician and he had bribed, black-mailed and in two cases committed murder in order to become the most renown and respected personal physician in the capitol, if not the entire country, hoping to enhance his chances at snatching that much coveted position. But for some odd reason, the new Firelord had never, during the entirety of his reign, appointed anybody as his personal physician.

All things considered, their beloved sovereign had probably been too young and too healthy to worry about anything but an occasional case of the sniffles. As for the bruises, cuts and sprains that he received in those vicious "training" fights he was famous for? Ah well….the Firelord wasn't the first, nor the last soldier, or rather former soldier, who eschewed the help of a physician, instead relying on the help of a few salves, ice and some solidly wrapped bandaging.

It was a bit strange though, to find the ambitions of his youth fulfilled now, even if it was only indirectly, while he was in the employ of another. Maybe not becoming the Firelord's personal physician had been the better alternative, for as it turned out, being out of the eye of the public and in the employ of a man with much wealth and little conscience held its own rewards.

For one last time, he checked his patient's pulse, breathing and reflexes. They were exactly as they should be. He called his apprentice over to watch over the patient while he went off to grab a quick bite to eat…and maybe a sponge bath and a change of clothes were in order too. The dose he'd given his patient this time had been smaller, and so the risk of any complications arising was much smaller. He'd be just down the corridor and if his patient took a turn for the worse, he'd hear it if his apprentice called for him and would be at his patient's side within less than a minute. The thought of having to go off board looking like a homeless drunk if he didn't change into something fresh was loathsome enough to risk the wrath of his employer.

He had made it only a few steps down the hallway when a silky-smooth voice stopped him in his tracks.

"My my….don't you think you're a bit far from our most venerable but sadly rather indisposed guest, dear doctor?"

The doctor turned and immediately sank down into a deep obeisance.

Light footsteps approached and a pair of dark red velvet slippers stopped right in front of his face. It looked a bit like their owner's feet had been dipped in blood. One of the slipper-clad feet slid forward and nudged the doctor sharply under the chin.

"Ah, don't be silly now. Do get up. You're so dirty, you'll smudge up the carpets otherwise. And you don't want to ruin my precious carpets, do you?"

"No, your excellency, I do not." The doctor cringed and then, slowly and carefully rose back to his feet, his eyes hastily roaming over the rugs, checking if he had left any marks. When he found that he hadn't, he slowly released the breath which he had been holding.

He looked up into the face of his master and bowed briefly once more. With his master, it never hurt to show a bit more deference than required.

It was astonishing really, that one so young and so innocuous looking had risen to such power and influence in just a few years, and without many people noticing too.

Granted, the Nishima family hadn't been exactly poor to begin with, but their youngest, and, by now, only, son certainly had risen beyond anything his father had ever dreamed of.

The young Nishima had a rather plump figure, the result of a penchant for over-indulging at mealtimes….and between mealtimes too. Flattering tongues referred to his master's shape as "well-rounded" and it matched the rosy face, soft brown eyes and the snub nose that the doctor had heard some of the ladies at court refer to as "cute".

In addition to the rather soft looking physique, there always was a strand of hair or two that escaped from his master's topknot, giving him an air of absentminded carelessness.

Combined with his tendency to wear clothes in drab ash-browns and dull dark reds, his whole appearance was rather unremarkable. It had taken the doctor a painful experience or two until he had learned the truth of the old saying "not to judge a scroll by its' casing".

"Now, my good man, tell me, how is our most cherished guest? I hope he is doing well?" The melodious tones of his employer's voice sent shivers down the physician's spine.

"Ahem….uh….He is well, your excellency, very well. His condition is still stable. I have given him a reduced dose though, so he should wake up right on schedule."

Nishima delightedly clapped his hands. "Oh, that's so wonderful isn't it? To have him here with us is such an honour, no? I think I'll just sneak in and have a look. What do you think? Should I? Really, I'm exited as if it were my birthday!"

Stretching his lips into a cheery smile that matched his employers, the doctor nodded vigorously. "By all means your excellency, you should, you really should! I'm sure that, once he wakes up, he will be quite impressed at how well you have taken care of him. Very impressed!"

A high-pitched giggle escaped Nishima's lips, which he instantly hid behind the sleeves of his robe, much like a shy young girl would.

"Oh, I'm certain he will be. I've been such a gracious host, no? I'm certain he won't mind if I pop in on him now. And you, my dear doctor…" Nishima looked the doctor up and down, a slight frown settling between his brows. "…you, should go and change into something more appropriate. You look like one of those dirty Earth Kingdom refugees. Really, if I weren't around to remind you to take better care of yourself, you would SO go to seed, no?"

Eyes wide and that cheery smile still fixed on his lips, the doctor nodded and bowed. Nishima dismissed him with a languid wave of his hand and the doctor turned, not-quite running all the way to his quarters. He had to make himself look presentable. It wouldn't do to disappoint his master.


Author's note:
Whew. SO glad I'm done with this chapter. It was a bitch to write. I revised and rewrote it more times than I can count and I ended up with nearly 30 pages, which I cut down to the above 12. This is kinda the turning point in the longer story arc, so getting it right was very important. I hope I managed.
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