Are You Cold?

Azula knows that better than anyone; just because some words are typically spoken with good intentions doesn’t mean they always are.

He’s mocking her. She knows. She knows. Are you cold?  he asks the firebender, one of the best firebenders, he asks her, as if she wasn’t above all this. As if she hadn’t been so much greater. As if she hasn’t been above him.

Are you cold? Are you cold? Are you cold?

“Fuck off!” She growls. She may be broken and behind bars, Azula will not give this man, a non-bender of all things, the satisfaction of knowing she’s shivering.

The man gives her a look, something she decides to read as frustration and loathing. It makes her feel better, to think she touched a nerve.

(It’s pity. Of all things- it’s fucking pity. All those times she’s been so so close to kill him and his companions and his people and all he gives her is pity, all those titles and the man refuses to look at Azula, Princess of the fire nation, greatest firebender alive, and chooses to see a scared little girl throwing a tantrum instead.)

Pity. She’s greater than that. She’s greater than him. She’s greater than all of this. Stop looking at her like this!

“I said fuck off!”

The man shakes his head, and leaves.

When Azula ceases to hear his footsteps, she curls onto herself and allows herself to cry.