(censored first half, find it elsewhere)
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Raven's first visit to her betrothed's warship could have gone better. She wasn't as covered as she would have liked as he dragged her like fussy luggage up the ramp, nothing she could do but make it known she struggled as she gave a glare that turned every soldier's gaze away without a word. The steel of the deck made for loud footfalls, each one too loud in the dark.
"We're leaving! Now!" Zuko shouted, and his men scrambled.
He knew exactly where he was going, apparently, as he didn't so much as pause a step on his way to the thick metal door below—something she couldn't easily blast down.
She grumbled quietly, still topless as he forced her to walk ahead of him, down stairs, then more, deeper to the lowest deck just against the cold sea where the air marked breath quite clearly. Those bulkheads took in cold with reckless greed, and at first, at least, the frigid air felt good on her blazing hot skin.
Until she hit the deck hard enough to rattle her teeth.
For a second she didn't even register that she'd been thrown. Her brain was still somewhere above, snagged on a tangle of burned fabric and scorched skin and the humiliating memory of how much he'd made her lose her mind with him. Rage had always been reliable. Rage had always been clean. But now it had failed her, so completely she'd never live it down.
"Not taking chances with you," he growled, grabbed her ankles before she quite realized what was happening, and her fit of kicking came to late as more metal bound her, and she was left only able to squirm on the ice cold floor.
He had no regard for offense as she blinked to see in the dim light, looked around, and found he hadn't even graced her with the brig. He'd stuffed her in little more than a closet, at the bottom of the ship, with nothing for company but metal bulkheads and indignation. Her bare arm burned against the cold iron, but she refused to turn, refused to reveal herself to him ever so slightly more. At least he'd pulled her pants back up. Such a gentleman.
She could still feel him inside her. It made it very, very difficult to come up with clever retorts.
Zuko let out a long sigh like he was relieved to finally have her where he wanted her, and despite it all she was ready to snap at him when he surely at least smirked at her, but to her rising irritation, no trace of a smile crossed his face. It made her heart pang right after as he looked down at her, and she tried to place it in the darkness. Pity? It was so out of place it made her sick.
"Why... don't you just kill me," she slowly said, an accusation, or maybe just a bit, it was a plea to escape from it all.
"Raven..." he breathed out like it hurt to say. It made her writhe and jerk, but all it did was clang and rattle the manacles on the metal floor, echoing over-loud down the narrow corridor outside the tiny, absolutely freezing room. But he stood tall again, chest filling as he loomed over her, and the menace returned as he said, "it's over. We're not fighting. We're not arguing. I don't care anymore. Don't. Bother." And he knelt down, just briefly, her craning her neck to sneer at him as hard as he could, "get over it, stop being a brat, or stay here till you freeze."
She opened her mouth, rage instantly building again, but he pointed his finger, so far he poked her brow. She tried and failed to bite it. He just looked disappointed. She wanted so badly to scream, spit, make as much a fuss as was left to her in her sorry state, but she just felt so scrambled, from top to bottom she couldn't make sense of it all: not her, not him, not his betrayal, not what... they just did. She could scarcely know what was real in that moment, and she felt a flicker, the faintest hint. Doubt. What the hell was she doing... he killed her. She knew it. Everyone did. He murdered Asha in cold blood, left her lifeless in a pool of blood in the halls of their father's estate. Even Arzaya knew it. It just made it even more maddening the crazy old witch let him have the spear. She WASN'T crazy. Not... this time. Her lower lip trembled, but she wouldn't cry, not in front of him. She hated that he could tell she was about to.
Her face was so heated, but it was nothing to do with bending. As he stood tall again, as he turned to just leave her there, to get away with EVERYTHING, she finally found the words, "I am not a fucking prize." He gave her a glance back, unaffected, and she spat, "if you think you can hold me... prepare to wake up dead."
He just rolled his eyes, and walked away. She couldn't even make him mad anymore. She wanted to die... just not by his hands. Anything but that. The weighty reinforced door swung shut with a loud and carrying noise that made her wince, but there was still a tiny gap at eye level where she could see his golden gaze.
"Not here, Raven. This room will bleed you dry. It's only going to get colder on the open sea," he flatly told her.
Raven felt like an afterthought as Zuko ordered guards, "don't open it, don't go in, if she somehow gets free come get me. Even like this, she'll kill you stone dead."
The guards gave quiet affirmations, and it made her teeth grind.
Yanking her body up, straining and twisting uncomfortably just to get on an elbow, she snapped, "I don't kill people just for getting in my way, you asshole!"
No response. Just boots on metal as he left—as he just fucking got away with it.
