Under the Brazier's Light

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/35517217.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Category: F/F
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Relationship: Azula (Avatar)/Reader, Azula (Avatar) & Reader
Character: Azula (Avatar), Reader, Original Female Character(s), Original
Characters
Additional Tags: Time Skips, Future Fic, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon
Divergence, Vaginal Sex, Lesbian Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Sexual
Slavery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rape, Painplay, Painful Sex,
Fingerfucking, Finger Sucking, Dominance, Breastplay, Reader has tig
ol' bitties
Language: English
Series: Part 2 of Firelord Azula
Stats: Published: 2021-12-05 Completed: 2021-12-10 Words: 4,851 Chapters:
2/2

Under the Brazier's Light

by deafabyss

Summary

In a world where the Avatar was unable to fulfill his destiny, the unforgiving scorch of fire
reigns. In a world where the former Fire Lord has ascended to near godhood, you often find
yourself at the feet and in the bed of the new Fire Lord.
 Chapter 1

The dim light of the dying fires and the impassioned giggles of the servants just on the other side of
the wall are about the only ways you can get to sleep most nights.

Your accommodations, as they were, had been recently upgraded. From the unsupportive flat of
two piled planets and a deflating pillow to padded cot, still with said blankets and pillow. It was
hard to complain, you supposed. Not even the servants could boast personal quarters, even if they
had formerly been a storage room. But the space was considerable even with the absence of
enrichment or basic furniture, and given what you’d been “afforded” coming here some three to
four years ago, it almost felt like some sort of blessing.

The distinction of status for the lesser of the Fire Palace were distinguished by said wall, thin but
defining. On the other side of the far wall of your quarters, there were an assortment of beds piled
and adjacent with hemp sheets and proper blankets that made a difference when thrown over the
body. The servants had their own hierarchy of sorts, but you had no way of discerning what it was
and how much it really meant with generals, courtiers, and the like ever present to bade them,
irrespective of self-governed titles.

Then there was you.

Far as you knew, you had many names, none of which were your birth one. The most common
being ‘peasant’ and ‘jiàn rén’.

Footsteps, modest in weight but quick and descending down the only hall that led into your
quarters. You erect slowly into a sitting position, legs strewn to your side as you clutched the rough
blanket against your sternum. Calm as you think you are, it bothers you that your heart races with
anticipation, body lightly jumping when the latches of the heavy iron door come undone, revealing
the venerable frame of the head maid, Zhi Xian. A woman who had somehow found herself as the
official minder of yourself from the moment you’d been presented.

“Up.” Is all she says. It’s all that needs to be said. To play coy would only put the two of you in an
awkward situation.

No longer able to hide, you throw your legs over the cot, abandoning the blanket. You stand, a
poor sight in the thread bare tunic that did not accommodate your bottom half. Zhi is not so
prudish, and if she ever had been, she’d had three years or so to overcome it. Her wrinkled hands
wave you quicker than usual to the steps and she near pushes you forward when you comply,
hands folded at your waist to cover your bottom front in some way or another.

Your stomach drops, but you force yourself to speak, “Is she angry?”

“No.” Zhi grumbles, “But she will be if you’re not in there when she enters. We’ll have to cut
corners with your cleaning, unsnarl your hair. I told you to keep on top of it while you’re in there.”

The both of you switch positions, and Zhi takes the lead while you quicken your steps to keep up
with the unsurprisingly nimble elder. Unsurprising, because inescapable debilities did not negate
the expectations of the Fire Lord in the slightest, nor her counsel.

“I had no water.” You argue in a contrastingly pleading tone, “No tools, no lotions, no anything.
I’ve told you how feckless it is to use my fingers.”

She grunts lowly, feet shuffling under the long hem of her garbs, but she is overall unresponsive to
your explanation. You’d once shirked at the woman’s shortness and ever flat or stern countenance.
She had a manner of snapping even when saying something as innocuous as “thank you” or “your
welcome.” She was a short woman, in height and disposition, but far from cruel.

You wonder if she had been as devastated as you’d been all those years ago when the last hope of
the world in and of itself had fallen to the hands of the Phoenix King, his comrades scattered in
different manners of punishment and imprisonment. Far as you knew, excluding the death of the
Avatar, two of them had been executed, the other three including the Fire Lord’s brother
imprisoned. You were not of the Fire Nation as Zhi was, so even if she had lamented the
irreversible rein of the Fire Nation, there was no way her sorrow could ever match what you had
felt.

You’d survived an impressive few years, in hiding with peer benders of the other two nations and
those of your own. But it had all only been bought time, as four years ago you’d been not only
found, but found by the Fire Lord herself. Some days you were within reach of your element, but
saw very little long term success even in your wildest fantasies of freedom.

Zhi pulls you roughly by the arm into the cleaning quarters, the two of your shortly followed by a
specialized staff of five that set to work. The next fifteen minutes are a haze cold cloths sheening
your skin with soap, coarse brushes of your hair into a less matted state and moisturizing it with
water and oils. Your body hair was not fully grown, but had still returned, and the women tenderly
run the thin blades in their arsenal over the areas, not needing to tell you to still yourself.

Zhi stands by the door, peering out now and again but rushing the women, harshly clapping her
hands together in moments of peak frustration. There is a moment that you glance over your
shoulder to look at her, but she is no longer there, and you surmise that has gone to get a better
view of the front of the palace.

“Don’t turn.” The woman at your hair commands sharply, forcing your head forward again by the
chin. You look up into the flickering flames of the brazier lights above your heads, steadying it
there until you felt the congregated servants disperse, a single one of the women coming from
behind with your robe, free of anything else that might help you remained covered.

The silk fabric of the robe glides smoothly along your freshly cleaned skin, lightly scented. These
few moments now are the ones you covet the most. You turn your head to the right of the wall
long mirror, admiring yourself. Before this life, you had known a simple yet not close to
impoverished life. You and your family had been comfortable, and you served well behind your
sister as food vendors, dishing our your father’s delicious good – a man of few words. The feeling
of silk was a new feeling these last few years. And perhaps even if it for just these nights, you can
admire yourself and relish for a moment in the feeling of being treated as any human being, not
some ‘peasant.’

Now that you were “perfect”, the servant who has draped you in the robe bides you to close it. The
two of you scurry to the door before jumping in tandem as Zhi returns, looking atypically stressed.

“Her palanquin is here!” she hisses, “Take her now. I will have the others clean up here.”

You do not have time to register the glancing faces of a few men of indiscernible title as you rush
down the halls, permitted by the guards at the grand bedroom doors.

A rare “privilege” if you considered it as such.

The servant, shaking in the hands, brings you to the bed, directing you on how to lay yourself.
Despite her sharp tongue earlier in cleaning you, you take her hands, startling her as she looked up
at you with shaky hazel eyes. You give a firm nod, “You can go. Please.”

Your kindness gives her pause, as you were usually silent in these instances and most days in
general. It must be the rigors of the Fire Nation propaganda that stop her from thanking you or
softening to your compassion. She can only snatch her hands from you and dashes out to avoid the
incoming storm of the Fire Lord.

When the doors are closed, you crawl to the center of the massive bed in the even grander
bedroom. You hold the robe closed but let the sleeve of your right shoulder slip down, legs strewn
to your side as you touched your hair, waiting. In these moments, no matter how composed you
had trained yourself to be, you can feel the rapid rush of your heart. The nights were unpredictable.
Never life threatening, but know could say what could happen. The Fire Lord had been absent for a
glorious two weeks for undisclosed reasons. None that you were aware of, anyway. Who could say
she had not returned in anger or in some ardent instincts of hostility, as she was prone to.

Your free hand that does not keep your robe closed balances you on the bed, gently gripping the
soft blanket at the thought.

Footsteps, again. But these are not rushed.

They are slow, deliberate, and composed. There is no unease in this gait. No need to appease a
higher standing person, because there is none for miles.

The gait stops.

You exhale gently as the right door cracks open, a minimal creak to it’s thick hinges as it opened
much wider than anyone else dare to try. The light of the room is muted being so high up, easing a
warm, orange glow over everything, creating shadows that mask the woman in her full presence.
But when she fully enters, the door closes behind her with an insultingly modest click and you can
see the light outline of her body despite the shadows, her infamous smirk showing.

“Well then, what do we have here..?”

 Chapter 2
Chapter Notes

Just to be clear, the Azula here is 28 and my image of her in my head is that of
Bluemist722’s painting of her as an adult. You can find them on Reddit, Instagram,
and Twitter. I’ll post a link to the photo on Reddit here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/ges05c/older_azula_art_concept/

While it is certainly more psychosomatic than any sort of tangible thing, there seems to be a new
heat to the room as the Fire Lord remains poised at the closed doors of her chambers, unlatching
and unknotting parts of her royal armor.

It’s easy to try and discern that perhaps she had gone out as she had in her youth, terrorizing the
landlocked colonies close enough to restrict her trip to two weeks. But she was a cautious woman.
Overly so, these days. Delusions of paranoia less feverish than her first months at the throne

Agni, her first years at the throne.

Banishments, lashings, executions, replacements, and infamous diatribes that carried in rumors
even so far as where you’d been when you’d still been in hiding. Wasn’t much of a wonder when
you’d been shaking upon being brought here. You’d come five years ago, but this madness had
been reality for what was now 15 years.

It was why even now, your hand to your robe only lightly quivers in expectation more than fear.

You’re surprised she’s not asked you to remove the armor personally. She never had, despite being
known to have her new staff of all women often do the most basic of tasks for her, as she always
had. It wasn’t a question you’d ever ask, but you’d decided on a night of insomnia that it was likely
a result of her vicious jingoism. To have someone of a distant nation she deemed so beneath her by
foreign homeland alone touching upon royal and specially made Fire Nation armor would likely be
an affront in and of itself to her.

Her now bare feet make no such sounds as she crosses the room, unlatching the needle and
headpiece that kept her hair aloft, dropping both to the floor without a second glance. Her hair,
glossed and lengthy comes around her head, including her face where it dangles, properly giving
the appearance of a woman comfortable in her madness.

What remains of her ensemble by the time she reaches the foot of the bed is the carefully wrapped,
lightly discolored wrappings that made up her undergarments, crossing over her chest with a
second half of underlinens. In some distant world where lives were not lost, war was a myth, and
you did not know the true nature and shape of monsters, one could marvel at how beautiful a
woman such as the Fire Lord was even in her most uncomposed moments.

But with her unpainted face leering down at your frame with low lidded eyes and a gradually
ticking smile of malice, you could never fix your lips to say such a betraying sentiment.

Hands folded in front of you and bow your head in an imposed reverence, eyes down on her stunted
nails compared to her painted talons, closing them to escape the room a moment as you greeted her.

“Welcome home, Fire Lord Azula.”

You had learned not to raise your head until beckoned or bid to do so. The best thing to avoid any
further pain than what was already inevitable.

She is silent to your greeting but instead reaches forward with a hand, grabbing your chin with
unneeded force, willing your gaze up to her elevated one. You wince a bit, which she revels in, and
look up at her, the tremble of your hands less conspicuous stacked on top of one another. She tilts
her chin up, regarding the state in which Zhi and the others have brought you to her, making sure
nothing is out of place to her preference. For Zhi’s sake, and even the cruel servant women who
made it no secret how little they regarded you, you hope it is enough.

“Apparently the old sea prune is worth keeping around after all.”

You swallow a relived exhale.

“Show yourself to be, peasant. Leave the robe on, though.”

She does not release your chin. You reach down somewhat blindly, finding the flaps of the silk
robe. With separate shifts, you move them away from the forefront of your torso where they had
been, baring it as well as your shoulders, the garment kept up only by the bend of your elbows,
pinched between your bicep and forearm. Your face no longer serves as something of interest as
she regards your chest fully, brows furrowed slightly in a lecherous concentration that makes you
want to squirm. You look away from her or the situation, eyes trained on the wall adorned with a
painting that detailed a perspective of the Fire Nation’s rural lands, idealized no doubt.

“What’s the matter, peasant? Can’t bear to see your own underfed body under the brazier’s light?
Piteous little peasants considered, yours is the only one I’ve seen in a while worth touching, let
alone looking at. I think it’s a little disrespectful for you to be looking away like that.”

You cut your gaze back to her, but it is too late. She takes the opportunity to latch a hand around
your throat, forcing you to rise up a bit, the pressure to your vocal cords forcing a sudden cough
from you as she smirked at your visceral response, your hands coming up to her hand, “I’m sorry,
my lady.”

“You should be.” Her grip tightens, “Coming home from keeping pissants like you in line, the
least you can do is show your Fire Lord some respect.”

“Yes, my Lady.” You manage out, fully on your knees now, trying to keep with her risen hold of
your neck. Your offhand sounds of struggle keep her lips in that arrogant simper and she releases
you all at once, watching you fall back on the bed, coughing with a gently rub to your neck, head
down again to avoid her gaze. You can hear her scoff but she makes no secondary attack on your
body just yet, beckoning you to stand, walking out of the way to allow you to stand where she’d
been, facing away from the bed.

You keep your gaze to the floor, briefly halfly circled by her before she positions herself behind
you. There is a heavy exhale from her, and when she does, the air that expends runs across your
flesh like steam, lightly burning but having no visible effect on your skin. Her arms come up from
behind, encircling your body until her hands rest possessively over your breasts.

She kneads them with silent admiration and lech, testing their weight and groping to see how much
she can hold in her hand before squeezing as hard as she can, making you hiss a moment in pain.
The Fire Lord, at her 28 years, stands some few inches above you, but not a full foot. Still, just so,
she is able to pull you into her body, lips grazing your right temple as takes the shell of your ear
between her teeth, clenching down.

This time is much harder to bite back, and you release a brief sound of pain, hands momentarily
rising before falling back to your sides, chest still being roughly fondled.

“You hate me, don’t you, peasant?”

“No, my lady.” You grit out, a light tingle coming between your legs when she brings a new focus
to your nipples, gently grazing the tipped ends of her nails against them, flicking with an intentional
taunt. You suck in another breath, neck arching a bit in that regrettable feeling that almost makes
you clench your thighs. You can feel her leaning into you more, reveling in your confliction, ear
still between her teeth as she leaned in, forcing you to lean away a bit.

“My brother used to tell everyone that I always lied. I suppose that was true in some respect. But as
a result, I can tell when others are lying too. When they are hiding something far more vicious
within them than what they’re presenting.”

She leans more into your face, making your right hand clench into a fist.

“I bet you look down when you greet me because you know you can’t hide your rage forever. You
wish you could kill me yourself and show my head to all your other pitiful dissidents that are either
dead, imprisoned, or holed up in some cave miles and miles from here. Just waiting to be snuffed
out by me or my father.”

Your left hand clenches.

“Your friends, right peasant? Chao, Yuhan, Guo.”

Your blood runs cold.

How did she know their names?

“Like either of us would waste our time hunting dirty peasants trying to defy the Fire Nation. Their
own incompetence will kill them. Just like it almost killed you before I brought you here.”

She was cruel. But tonight was atypical. She had not yet made light of the deaths of your friends
the day she’d found you or spoken so long just to get a rise out of you. So much as you are able to
understand what is happening, it does not stop the aforementioned rage that she was consciously
aware of. The left hand continues to abuse your left breast while the right shifts down, gently
gliding up and down along the right side of your abdomen.

“Tell me how angry you are.”

She pinches your nipple between her nails, briefly forcing you to release your fists as your back
arched a touch, another sound of pain coming out.

“Tell me you hate me.”

You gaze fires over your shoulder at her, the cold rage she had spoken of all present as the words
burn out, bitter.

“I hate you.´
You’re in your right mind, perhaps just foolishly uncaring of what happens to you in this moment.
You only want her to know that she has not broken you, even after all this time. The hate in your
eyes is perhaps more than she realized, but nonetheless, she regards your bitter expression with that
complacency that drove most silently mad, and punishes you per her intentions all along by
gripping the side of your abdomen, nail first. The pinch and clutch feel as though they’ve broken
skin, and you release a much louder cry of pain as she wretches her hand down, scratching you
down from start of your breasts to the start of your waist. She releases you completely and watches
you fall on your knees.

You move a hand to your side, small sounds of pain stuttering out as you covered yourself from
her. There is no blood, but a few flecks of your dermis stick up from the pressure, sure to be picked
at later in the silence of your quarters.

You remain on your knees, leaned over a bit to avoid anything more from her.

“Pathetic peasant. Still thinking her rage means something.”

“Guess that old sea prune hasn’t been as useful as she swears. Banishing her from the only land
she’s ever known ought to make her worthlessness clear to her.”

Your eyes tear open and you look up at the woman who already anticipates your worried
expression.

She laughs, then and there, in your face.

“I could never imagine being so worried for a woman who has never cared for you even in the
slightest. It might be wise to wonder who told me your friends’ names, and be a little smarter about
who you share your past with.”

It couldn’t be true. The rare moments with Zhi when she’d allowed herself to linger down in your
quarters. When you’d shared things with one another. Perhaps not the most intimate of details on
her end, but a seemingly genuine concern for your past and who you had once been before all of
this.

Had she really just been vying for information to keep in favor?

Did you truly have no one here you could trust?

“Enough foreplay, peasant. Get back on the bed.”

You pause a moment but rise at her beckon, eyes a little less with light at the revelation which was
precisely what she wanted. You knew it. You knew this was what she wanted. You knew she
wanted to break you a little more. To shatter any feeling of safety or comfort here. You knew it and
you know it. Yet, you still cannot help but allow the feelings to take you.

Your feet lead you to the bed with the Fire Lord only so many inches behind you, grazing a hand
over your ass in passing before you relax on the bed, moving to the center, resting your head on the
assortment of pillows behind you. The Fire Lord comes next and sets herself back on top of you,
kept up with her hands on either side of your head. She preens her hair back to clear up her line of
sight, drinking your body in a moment before reaching a hand down between your legs.

You can feel her hand come against your core, feeling a light slickness from her prior handling of
your breasts. You look away, but have your gaze turned back by the hand at your core, willing you
through gaze to stay put before it returns back between your legs. She runs her fingers over your
entrance, humming quietly before smirking.
“You’ll scream for me, peasant. Whether you want to or not.”

She starts off moderately rather than the slowness a true lover might begin with, arousing your clit
with small circles. You jerk a bit, almost turning away again but stopping short. Instead, you arch
your neck a bit, biting down on your tongue as she coated the pads of her middle and index fingers
with you, dragging taunting strokes up and down.

The circles stop abruptly, and you see the ends of her nails at your mouth, opening before she can
punish you for not following unspoken directions.

She jerks her fingers. Hard enough that you gag at the first inward pump. Rather than leaving the
job to you, she forcefully strokes your tongue even as it moves around, allowing you to taste
yourself against her fingers. Her expression of complacency is slightly disrupted. Something more
earnest coming over: lust.

She shudders inwardly as you struggle against her forced pumping, her own core pulsing at the
sight of your lips wrapped around her slender fingers. When she pulls out, you are lightly panting,
bottom lip slick from saliva before you suck it in a moment, drying it somewhat.

“It’s okay to like it. You’re not the first woman in my bed to act like she didn’t like what was
happening.”

You wonder for a moment what becomes of women who formerly share a bed with the Fire Lord,
and where they go when she’s found a new plaything.

Your body reacts in full when that hand finds it’s way back to your core, and you can feel her try
for your entrance, slipping in up to her top knuckle with ease before willing herself the rest of the
way through, inserting her fingers up to the bottom knuckle. Your back arches, mouth slightly ajar
before being domineered by the Fire Lord yet again, her tongue pushing in and overstimulating
you in tandem with her hand below that steadily begins to pump, curved up in a manner that
allowed her to brush your clit with each inward and outward movement.

“Agni, you’re wet.” She growls lightly against your lips.

You wince at the feeling of her nails, but otherwise, only feel a shameful pleasure as she fingered
you with abandon, moving faster as her own arousal compounded watching your frame writhe
lightly against her efforts. It had been more subtle before, but with her increasing wetness, you can
feel her gently buck her hips, riding your thigh in a mutual pleasure. That she was even considering
your own pleasure was based simply off of the fact that she was aroused by the shame you felt
being touched by her, and the fact that your body could not help but react to it.

You can feel the tight coil of something in your stomach, growing with each stroke of your clit and
pump of her fingers. You try to kiss back, but the overstimulation leaves you feeling weak, and you
fall to the mercy of her aggression, hands coming back up to her biceps to steady your writhing as
she essentially used your body, giving you little to do but what she wanted.

Your breathes hitch, and she can hear it.

“Getting close, peasant?” She taunts. By now, your epithet is like venom meant to strike you even
in your bout of pleasure under her. She can hear your quiet sounds with each push of her fingers
that is kin to gentle whimpers and even soft, muffled moans that you fail to swallow.

“Beg me to let you cum. Beg that I might ever be so merciful to some baseborn little wretch!”

She taunts, but she nears her own orgasm herself. Your breathes are belabored, struggling against
her lips, but the words are not only desired but commanded by her.

“Please let me cum, my lady. Please.”

“Louder.”

“Please, my lady! Let me -!”

“Louder, whore!”

You are on the cusp.

“Please fuck me until I cum, my lady! Please!” You cry out, that knot in your stomach snapping in
tandem with the Fire Lord as the both of you ride out your orgasms, her own arching her back and
willing her to release a rare, ragged cry of pleasure she she rode your thigh until the sensation was
gone. Your own body convulses and the two of you breathe violently through your noses, mouths
still latched onto one another. You are pressed between her and the bed as she comes down
completely with her full weight, breathes hard and head against your chest.

The fire subsides and there is silence.

When you open your eyes an hour later, they come to the bottom of the brazier above your heads
that gives the room its quiet glow and casts those same shadows that had hidden her entrance. Your
eye lids are low and when you look down, you realize that the Fire Lord has fallen asleep. A
situation that had no right answer. If you woke her up now, she would be disgusted and angered
post-arousal to see herself laying so intimately against your chest. If you waited until she woke up,
it would be the same result.

You might as well have your time in such a rare luxury of comfort like the bed, above ground and
unable to be bothered by Zhi or any of the others. The light of the moon is negated by the room’s
light, but you can see that it is still late. No one would come knocking, for their own health.

You sigh quietly, careful not to move much. The weariness of the night takes it toll. You might
have been asleep this whole hour, but you can feel the lingering exhaustion creep over you in a
different kind of warmth to the one who had felt prior.

Unable to turn either way, you can only gaze up at the singularly lit brazier with it’s flickering
flames, your vision thinning with each moment of exhaustion before your eyes shut and you fall
asleep, bracing for the oncoming morn.

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