It's a Backstabbing World, Honey
Ty Lee guessed it was because she was a little bit naïve. Okay; she was horribly, horribly gullible and naïve. So it was no shocker that she hadn't seen this coming. But Mai? Mai should've seen it, should've seen it coming from two miles away and been prepared, not surprised as she had been, but now the gymnastic girl had began to think that maybe her deadpan dark friend also had been a bit on the naïve side.
Maybe they had both lived in a fantasy world and thought that surely, even though Azula is bossy, mean, cold-hearted, selfish, sly, a liar, and never ever cares for anyone else but herself, that she couldn't possibly hurt them. They were best friends since their days before the Academy and they had always worked together.
But Ty Lee could admit to herself without any shame that she had always been the tiniest bit afraid of the Fire Nation princess. It was like as if she knew, deep down inside, that Azula would betray them sooner or later, like the backstabbing little bitch she had proven herself to be over the last couple of weeks. Hell, she even betrayed her brother, her own flesh and blood, whom she had known her whole life. What said she couldn't betray her two best friends forever, whom she had known not her whole life?
At the Boiling Rock Ty Lee did her work as usual, as always with a piece of doubt and hesitation in her heart, and she expected this to work out the way it usually did; the Avatar's guys getting away barely and Azula being angry over it later. But when Mai started to rebel and fought their own guys, the usually hyperactive girl was first surprised and wanted to yell at her to stop what she was doing right away, because she saw and she sensed how Azula got furious.
And again she had been a little naïve; she thought (or hoped?) that Mai's punishment would be as mild as possible, as she realized what could happen but she tried to suppress those thoughts. Azula is dangerous, she thought, trying to convince herself as she watched the tense scene. She has lost it, we should talk to her, she will understand it's just the heat and the pressure; she wouldn't do this to Mai otherwise… But when the princess lashed out against her friend with the full intention of causing pain, she instantly realized that the pink fantasy rainbow world both she and Mai had lived in did not exist, and that Azula was indeed not their friend. And it was then that Ty Lee made an impulse decision and took her down, because her mind was only set on rescuing Mai, keeping her out of danger. Let's go! she cried alarmed and scared to the knife thrower, trying to hurry her on.
But they couldn't escape and they were thrown into a tiny cell. And as she sat there in the middle of the night, alone with nothing but her thoughts, Ty Lee couldn't help but notice that she had been so very naïve. Not only through the Boiling Rock incident, but her whole life.
Because even if she had honestly never thought that Azula would hurt them, she should have realized that she had already done that all along.
A/N: The title is a string from the first verse of the song "Meet You There Someday" by the band Augustana. A good song and I think it kind of describes Ty Lee well in my fic.