ruler of her heart, KORRA

𝟬𝟬𝟭 Home, Sweet, Home

── 𝒓𝒖𝒍𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕.

[ 001 ] HOME, SWEET, HOME
❝And who's this? Another one of your women?❞

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

 SANYU HAD ONLY EVER been with one man: General Iroh II.

 Sometimes, being with him felt like stepping into a dream──intimate yet distant, as if she were caught between the warmth of the present and the ghosts of the past. Maybe it was the legacy he carried, the name that followed through history. His grandfather, Fire Lord Zuko, had been a close friend of her grandfather, Avatar Aang. The thought brought her a strange stir of comfort and unease, like their shared lineage always lingered around them.

 But there were moments──precious, fleeting moments──when all of that faded away.

 Iroh's touch had a way of unraveling her, filling cracks she hadn't known existed. It wasn't just passion──it was the gentle way he cupped her face, the warmth in his voice when he called her by name, the softness he hid from everyone else but her. He reshaped her in ways she couldn't explain, making her feel simultaneously whole and vulnerable.

 She loved watching him sleep. In those rare, peaceful moments, he wasn't a general, wasn't a prince, just Iroh. His features relaxed, and the weight he carried slipped away. She memorized those moments, holding them close like delicate treasures, because when he was awake, he was a man shaped by duty, by expectation. By the same burdens that often kept her awake at night.

 And yet, for all the tenderness, something always held her back.

 Their relationship felt like it hovered in a flimsy in-between space, neither defined nor dismissed. She loved the way he made her feel──safe, cherished──but she knew they were both avoiding the questions that would force them to confront whatever this was.

 Were they a fling? Something more?

 She didn't know. They never named it, never pushed past the unspoken boundaries. And maybe that was for the best. Naming it might make it real, and reality was far messier than this liminal space they had built.

 But when the nights stretched long, and the loneliness pressed in, she found herself reaching for him. For his warmth, for the way he grounded her when everything else felt like it was spinning out of control. She couldn't imagine facing it all without him. The thought of losing this──whatever this was──felt like staring into a void, one that might swallow her whole.