Burnt Out - Zuko x OC

The Throne Inside Your Head

***** NSFW CONTENT *****

Kai sat in a dark room. Complete blackness surrounded her, but it was illuminated blackness. She could see that she was in only her night clothes — a binder that she'd borrowed from Katara and compression shorts she'd stolen off of a laundry line. Below her was a sturdy chair, but that she couldn't see. Not because it wasn't visible from her position, but because it was transparent. As if she were floating in a seated stance with no strain at all on her muscles.

Her head rolled around on top of her shoulders as she came to, arms folded loosely in her lap. This dark, damp place seemed both familiar and foreign.

"Where am I?" She whispered to herself. Her voice was raspy from a dry, scratchy throat.

"You don't recognize it? We're in your head." A voice said back. The bodiless voice didn't frighten Kai. It was deep and frail and almost recognizable. It seemed to come from both nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

She tried to stand from her imaginary seat but found herself to be restrained somehow. Her arms and legs were free of fetters, but she had absolutely no control over anything below her neck.

"I can't move." She said, to which the voice responded, "Because you are tired, my dear child."

Kai was suddenly aware of how right they were. She was so, so exhausted, both mentally and physically.

"Don't worry, we'll take it from here." It said. "Rest. Close your eyes. Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing.."

Though the voice was low and old, it was oddly hypnotic. She found her chin drooping back down against her chest, the illuminated darkness began closing in as her eyes grew heavy.

"I don't want to.." She whispered. "Wh-who are you.."

The voice paused for an uncomfortable amount of time before answering, and Kai felt the hair raising sensation of being in terrible danger creep up her spine.

"I'm every nightmare you've ever had." The voice said, drawing out its words in a slithering, wicked way. "I'm every stomach ache and fit of rage. I'm the only thing that has ever loved your rotten, miserable soul. I'm the only thing that loves you, and you love me, too."

Kai gained a little bit of consciousness as her stomach turned upside down with nausea. She tried lifting her head, but it felt to be packed full of cement. "No.. no." She whined. "I don't.. I don't love you..."

"Oh, but you do, sweet girl." It said, sounding closer now. "Your mother and father, your friends, even those boys that you've taken the liberty to entertain.. they don't love you. They don't know what goes on in here, in your head. But I do. I know of every deliciously vile thought you've ever had, of every damning, selfish impulse you've ever acted on."

The voice continued to speak while Kai tried with what little energy she had to drown it out. Her head rolled back and she stared at what would've been the ceiling or sky. But still, only darkness.

"I'm the giddy twitching of your fingers when you draw your swords. I'm the tingling between your thighs when the water tribe boy touches your face, and when the prince opens your legs with little resistance, even when that dirty cook looks you up and down like a fresh cut of meat. I'm the reason you feel no shame. And you love feeling no shame for all of the heinous things you do — your lying and thievery and promiscuity — therefore you love me."

Kai's mouth stopped moving but her thoughts continued flowing aloud around her. She was in her own head, after all.

"If it weren't for me, you would've never made it. Without me, you're just a lost, lonely, unloveable little girl." It said. "I'm your oldest friend and your mortal enemy. But I'm no mortal. And you.." It sucked in through sharpened invisible teeth as if being turned on by its own words. "Oh, you.. someday you won't be either. And then we'll have our time on the throne. The throne you're sitting on now, the one inside your head."