“What I wonder, my son, is what could possibly bring you here? I have slain no guards, whispered no poison in anyone’s ears- you make sure I am served only by those who cannot hear or heed me. How have I aroused your suspicions- and enough to warrant a personal visit, no less?”
“That’s the thing- you haven’t. You’re too quiet- the only strange thing I’ve heard about is the guards think you’re getting fat, and spirits alone know how that could be spun into a conspiracy,” Zuko said, and watched Ozai’s reaction with guarded wariness.
The older man simply smiled. His faded burgundy prison tunic hung baggily about him, neither concealing nor revealing anything in particular but a paunch any other man of his age would have been proud of.
“On that, I suppose we must agree.”
“This was a waste of time,” the young Firelord snapped, turning on his heel. “I cannot believe, even when you’re not trying, I still let you into my head…”
He didn’t have to look to know Ozai watched him go with more amusement than he had watched him enter. His father’s humming resumed, following him out.
…
The jailers had been ordered to keep their lord apprised of any changes. There were none to report; their charge neither complained nor asked for anything, he simply- grew heavier.
Seven months after he took the throne, Zuko stormed into his father’s cell once more.
“Are you sick?” he demanded. Ozai looked up from where he had bundled his pallet up to support his lower back, and did not deign to rise.
“Why-ever do you ask, O mighty Firelord? Is my health of such concern to you?”
“It is when you look like someone who has a stone growing in their guts- what is wrong with you?! Are you so proud you wouldn’t ask- but no, of course you are-!” Ozai watched his son fume with the air of someone who knows he has won the game, and is simply allowing his opponent to bury himself up to the neck before delivering the final blow.
When Zuko wound down, the former Firelord got slowly to his feet, coming closer to the bars. Zuko stepped up, opened his mouth, about to insist that there would be an inquest and a healer and that Ozai was not to break any bones nor even insult the healer, and there would be acquiescence and he would be a good patient and-
His hand was yanked through the bars in a grip of iron, and settled against his father’s rounded belly.
Zuko’s eyes went wide, and he twisted in his father’s grip.
“You didn’t think that when I took the name Phoenix King, it was merely an empty title, did you?”
There was taut muscle stretched over the form of some great sphere under his palm, the skin tight under the slide of cloth. The senses he had as a firebender were singing up his arm, telling him this, this was terrible power and coiled potential and fragile as a kindling flame in his father’s belly, hot beneath his hand.
Re: Ozai/Zuko, This Shouldn't Happen (2/however many it needs)
“That’s the thing- you haven’t. You’re too quiet- the only strange thing I’ve heard about is the guards think you’re getting fat, and spirits alone know how that could be spun into a conspiracy,” Zuko said, and watched Ozai’s reaction with guarded wariness.
The older man simply smiled. His faded burgundy prison tunic hung baggily about him, neither concealing nor revealing anything in particular but a paunch any other man of his age would have been proud of.
“On that, I suppose we must agree.”
“This was a waste of time,” the young Firelord snapped, turning on his heel. “I cannot believe, even when you’re not trying, I still let you into my head…”
He didn’t have to look to know Ozai watched him go with more amusement than he had watched him enter. His father’s humming resumed, following him out.
…
The jailers had been ordered to keep their lord apprised of any changes. There were none to report; their charge neither complained nor asked for anything, he simply- grew heavier.
Seven months after he took the throne, Zuko stormed into his father’s cell once more.
“Are you sick?” he demanded. Ozai looked up from where he had bundled his pallet up to support his lower back, and did not deign to rise.
“Why-ever do you ask, O mighty Firelord? Is my health of such concern to you?”
“It is when you look like someone who has a stone growing in their guts- what is wrong with you?! Are you so proud you wouldn’t ask- but no, of course you are-!” Ozai watched his son fume with the air of someone who knows he has won the game, and is simply allowing his opponent to bury himself up to the neck before delivering the final blow.
When Zuko wound down, the former Firelord got slowly to his feet, coming closer to the bars. Zuko stepped up, opened his mouth, about to insist that there would be an inquest and a healer and that Ozai was not to break any bones nor even insult the healer, and there would be acquiescence and he would be a good patient and-
His hand was yanked through the bars in a grip of iron, and settled against his father’s rounded belly.
Zuko’s eyes went wide, and he twisted in his father’s grip.
“You didn’t think that when I took the name Phoenix King, it was merely an empty title, did you?”
There was taut muscle stretched over the form of some great sphere under his palm, the skin tight under the slide of cloth. The senses he had as a firebender were singing up his arm, telling him this, this was terrible power and coiled potential and fragile as a kindling flame in his father’s belly, hot beneath his hand.
“What did you do?”
…