"Ahem. So why did you come here, Princess? I doubt it was merely to admire my collection of... tea." I broke the awkward silence. Perhaps this was the moment for some sort of romantic speech, but I knew the girl in front of me far too well by now. She would appreciate verbal sparring that skirted the line far more than any romance—at least while she was in this state.
"Yes. I wanted to discuss that... incident the other evening." The girl pulled herself together and once again began rapidly pacing around the room. "You could have just woken me up!" It seemed to me that she'd intended to say something else. And then there was that darting gaze.
"Forgive me, but I simply couldn't bring myself to do it..." The girl froze mid-step and stared at me in astonishment.
"You? Were you actually afraid of my wrath when I woke up? No." She cut herself off. "You aren't afraid of my wrath at all! Then why?!"
"Are you sure you want to hear this?"
"Of course. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked." Azula irritably fixed the loose strand of hair at last and began burning holes through me with her gaze.
"Well... You looked so adorable that waking you seemed almost sacrilegious." Why was I acting like a suicidal lunatic with a death wish?! I'd meant to say something completely different! Though yes, that was exactly what I'd been thinking at the time, but I wasn't enough of an idiot to actually say it out loud!.. Son of a biiitch!
"What? How dare you..." She broke off, her mouth falling open in disbelief. "You'll answer for those words!" The fingers of the princess's free hand clenched into a fist. Looked like it really was going to be an Agni Kai after all...
"As you wi—Mmm?!" Now that I definitely hadn't expected from her! The kiss was rough, forceful, and sudden, like a gunshot and an electric shock at the same time. It felt as though a tongue of flame had scorched my lips, even though there hadn't been the slightest trace of firebending involved.
The princess leaned forward, rising onto her toes to reach my face, and before I could even begin to process what was happening, she pulled away just as abruptly, leaving behind not a sensation of heat but rather the touch of northern frost. Most likely, of course, it was simply my brain conjuring phantoms in a desperate attempt to shield itself from the sheer unreality of what had just happened, but that didn't make the sensations any less vivid!
"I need to go." Azula spun on her heel. "And I'm taking this... painting with me," the girl finished after a second's pause, tightening her fingers around the portrait.
"Yeah..." I responded sluggishly. "But first you'll have to answer for trespassing in my quarters, Princess." If I surrendered all the initiative to a sixteen-year-old girl, I'd never respect myself again!
A quick move toward the door, catching the girl by the wrist, spinning her almost weightless body back toward me... I caught the bewildered look in her amber eyes... and kissed her again before she could recover.
The second kiss was every bit as passionate as the first. It felt as though my lips had been scalded with boiling water and jolted with electricity, so intensely that behind those sensations, I seemingly didn't feel anything else at all. Not even the touch itself. And once again, there was no time to let those phantom "pains" fade, because this time it was me who broke contact, without even knowing why.
No, obviously this wasn't the time or the place... and our positions imposed certain obligations, but my body seemed to be acting on its own! Still... Gods, I needed to process this! I could admit it to myself: I was attracted to Azula, and her beauty and strength genuinely inspired admiration, but I simply hadn't expected a move like that from her, and so I was more than a little thrown off balance.
"Enough." She calmly slipped free of my arms. So calmly that her face resembled a wax mask, with only her eyes slightly—barely noticeably—widened. "I... really need to go... And think all of this through."
"I understand. You're not the only one..."
The girl nodded and left, abandoning me to my thoughts. And I certainly had a lot more to think about now, but first... I'd seen a river somewhere relatively nearby. A cold shower was exactly what I desperately needed right now.
***
Chan. Some Time Later.
A day had passed since the "incident" in the cabin. Neither the princess nor I had mentioned what had happened there. In fact, we were both doing our best to pretend that nothing had happened at all. Basically, behaving exactly as teenagers were supposed to.
Yeeeah.....
Though judging by the sly expressions on Azula's "ladies-in-waiting," they had somehow managed to sense that something was up and figure it out. Damn female telepathy.
Still, those were only my suspicions—no one was admitting to anything. Though it would have been foolish to expect Suki or Toph to hand over "strategic intelligence from enemy headquarters" to me. Besides female telepathy, there was also female solidarity, multiplied by the collective wickedness of these particular women. And I didn't even know which was more terrifying.
(End of Chapter)
P@treon: /SadRaven
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