I'm sorry that this prompt is late. I had an idea for this prompt but I also had finals. I hope you enjoy even though it's a belated submission.

PITY PARTY

In another Universe, decided Ty Lee quite long ago, nothing was different between her and Azula before the war. They grew up intertwined the same way. But in that world they had a happy ending and Azula came back and they had to rebuild after the Boiling Rock but they did it and even though it took a long time they stuck with it. They were best friends again and more than that when it was the right time. They both thought it was worth it. That their relationship was worth it. That it wasn't all for nothing.

They held hands again.

They did not let go.

She honestly hated herself for thinking about that. She honestly hated herself for wishing every night that she could wake up in that world. She honestly hated herself for daydreaming about a person she knew was poisonous.

But Ty Lee was not allowed to hate.

She was not allowed to cry.

She was not allowed to wallow.

She was not allowed to be cynical about anything.

It would never fit the image of herself she wanted to portray. So, she kept her face turned to the sun at all times, even when it burned her eyes.

Today, she felt that feeling behind her eyes nonstop. The feeling that she was going to cry, to burst into a puddle of years. But she needed to hold back. She smiled and went shopping with her friends, hoping that would cure the sadness in her soul.

It did not.

She thought the entire time about telling her friends what was bothering her, that she was sad. But she did not want to invite them all to a pity party. A pity party. It would be a pity party and Ty Lee did not want to be known as the kind of person who throws those.

So, she made the only choice she could. She bid her friends goodbye at the end of the day and went on a solemn march to the palace. There stood Azula, in the doorway, a light red dress billowing in the soft summer wind.

"Were you waiting to me?" choked Ty Lee.

"I saw you coming." Azula shrugged. "Perhaps you are not here for me."

"No. I'm here to see you, Azula," said Ty Lee, a little nervously. She knew she probably came to the wrong person. She knew that staying away from Azula was always the wise decision.

"To what do I owe the pleasure," coolly said the princess with a false smile. That fake smirk hurt more than a sneer ever could.

Ty Lee turned around hastily. "I knew I shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry; I've gotta go."

Azula reached out and seized her arm. Ty Lee spun around to face the princess.

Ty Lee's ex-girlfriend demanded, "What do you want? To try to cure me with kindness again?"

"I don't want to get back together, if that's what you mean," whispered Ty Lee. "I just wanted to see you." Ty Lee swallowed her fears and tried to hold back her tears.

I can't get you out of my head.

"Why?"

"I just like you a lot. I liked to be around you before everything."

"Before a series of failed attempts at a relationship. I stand by my last. We could have had a good one if you never ruined it in the first place."

"I hate that I still think you're a good person."

"I hate it too."

"But you look really pretty today and I'd love to have tea."

Azula pursed her lips and thought about it for a few moments.

"Come inside. I'll have the servants prepare a little tea party for us old friends."

Princess Azula followed through on her word and Ty Lee followed her through the palace. They at last sat down beneath the sun with cups of tea steaming furiously. Ty Lee squinted in the sunlight.

"This looks fun," chirped Ty Lee, sitting down across from the princess. "It's so good to see you. So good."

"You have been avoiding me for months since we… broke up." Azula's eyebrows twitched at the last two words. "I doubt it is so good to see me."

"No. I really missed you." Ty Lee smiled.

"Answer a question," ordered Azula. "How is it so easy for you to be kind to people?"

Ty Lee thought about it for a few moments. She tore at her lip with her thumb and forefinger and tried to find another answer than the truth. She gave up.

Finally, she said, "Because nobody ever really bothered to be kind to me."

"I guess I can't argue with that claim." Azula shivered in the damp winter air. The motion gave Ty Lee goosebumps, hers not from the cold. "But it wasn't really my question. There is no way you don't hate me just a little bit. There is no way you ever always loved your dear friends. There is no way you have never wanted to be cruel. To hurt people back."

Ty Lee decided Azula gave her the answer she sought a few moments ago.

"I'm a really good liar." Ty Lee smiled. Then she felt her nose tingle with those tears she knew she could not permit herself to cry.

"That you are. You always knew just how to go along with my lies." Azula smiled. Ty Lee genuinely smiled for the first time all day. She loved reminiscing about being a child, when everything was simple and easy.

"I did. I was in love with you, anyway." Ty Lee did like that she could be open about that now.

"So, tell me what is bothering you, because I see through you," Azula said.

"I don't want to bother you. You'll make fun of me. It's nothing."

"You, uhm, you did well listening to my problems, to my sadness, to my pain. I can afford to listen to you for a few minutes." Azula sounded utterly cold and Ty Lee did not know why she liked that. Maybe because it meant Azula felt no pity for her. "I doubt your problems are worse than mine but that does not mean you cannot share them."

Ty Lee took a deep breath. "Everybody I love goes away. I've had nothing but failed relationships for years, all with people I love. I quit the Kyoshi Warriors a few months ago for, like, no reason. I just had this feeling I was doing the wrong thing, but maybe I was doing the right thing and I shouldn't listen to my gut. I just feel like my world is missing something. Missing a lot of things. I don't know what I'm missing, though? I just don't know why everything feels wrong! And everything is falling apart because of this-this-this identity crisis and when everything is falling apart I just want to go back to how it was when I was really, really, really happy. I was really happy when I was with you. So I think about you. I think about you when my life is so—so—so bad."

Azula did not know how to reply. She hated these… emotional things.

She decided to be sweet, to say perhaps the opposite of the truth and appease Ty Lee for once. Maybe it would end this dreadful cycle. "You deserve someone who cares. You deserve someone who wants an invitation to your pity party, and wants to make things better for you. I am a bit occupied with myself at the moment."

"Maybe I deserve somebody else, but I only want you. I've only wanted you forever."

"I do not want you. You do not want me," lied Azula. Of course she still wanted the woman sitting across from her, but she knew she could not handle Ty Lee a second time.

Ty Lee whispered, "That isn't true."

"You can still choose to believe it, can't you? I am already sick of this tea party and sick of the same conversation we have had over and over again."

"I don't know why I keep seeing you. Every time I see you it gets worse."

Azula agreed. It was the same for her. Yet, she would never say something like that.

"You look like I just killed your kitten." I don't want to break your heart.

"I'm fine. I'm really fine. Happy. I can put an optimistic spin on anything, even this."

"You are allowed to cry," said Azula. "If you want to. I assure you, I could not care less."

Ty Lee burst into tears. Hysterics. Sobbing. Crying, crying, crying. Shoulders shaking.

Azula watched without a glint of pity in her golden eyes.

At this moment, Ty Lee knew that she never before felt more relieved.