AN: This is for the prompt windchill. It's late but I haven't really had the time and I hope you enjoy despite the tardiness.
Ty Lee says to Suki, "We aren't really that physical."
Suki's eyebrows shoot up. She never would have expected that. Of course, she highly disapproved of Ty Lee's relationship and disappeared any time Azula was nearby for fear of drowning her in the ice-cold ocean. Yet, she wants her friend to be happy, and Ty Lee cannot be happy without people drooling over her physique.
"Define that physical," replies Suki.
"Well, when we were younger we made out and stuff, but, I mean, we never even held hands then, and we sure don't now. We've kissed a couple of times since we got back together." Ty Lee sighs sadly, while Suki stands mute. "I really just want to hold her hand."
Suki has never heard something sweeter than that in her life.
"She doesn't deserve you. You love her more than anybody should love such a heartless, sadistic bitch," Suki calmly comments. Unsurprisingly, Ty Lee shakes her head.
"I don't deserve her. She's perfect," whispers Ty Lee.
Suki knows she will never make much of an impression. She gives in.
"Take her to the beach. It's cold. Walk with her. Hold her hand."
"Get electrocuted to death."
"Why would you want to hold the hand of someone who would kill you for doing it?"
"Because she's Azula and there's not a need for any other reason than that."
Suki would strongly disagree, but she just shrugs.
"I'll take Zuko with me, so you have some support." Suki adds silently in her head, 'In case she really does attack you.'
Ty Lee stands up and hugs Suki tightly. "You're the best friend ever!"
"In the Fire Nation, beaches are warm," snarls Azula. She hates Ty Lee for taking her to this place, and she hates Zuko and Suki gawking at them from the boulders only twenty or thirty feet away. "Can we walk somewhere private?"
Ty Lee looks nervous. She struggles with summoning her answer.
"I think Zuko and Suki are watching you because you're…" Ty Lee has many ways she can end that sentence, but wants to say none of them. Azula can answer it for herself.
"Fine," hisses the princess, still displeased.
"So…" Ty Lee furrows her brow. "So you're cold?"
"Yes. That is what I said," Azula replies with a swift roll of her golden eyes. Ty Lee gazes at them and loses herself in the color at first, then the hollow pain beneath it, like chipped plaster under cheap paint.
Her gaze drifts down to Azula's lips. The princess catches on, surprisingly, and kisses her.
Ty Lee removes her own jacket and hands it to Azula hastily, almost knocking her over.
Oh, how the blind lead the blind in their relationship.
"What's this?" Azula asks, her cool, calm, fiery voice replaced by one more fitting to a nervous thirteen-year-old on a first date than a young woman at the cusp of adulthood.
"A coat," Ty Lee replies. She blushes, then her mind catches up to her racing heartbeat. "I just thought that I would be chivalrous and give it to you for now, since it's cold."
She smiles charmingly. Azula finds it both attractive and sickening.
The princess does slide the coat on.
"Not bad." She likes the fur, but she does not want to make a fool of herself by figuring out how to stay formidable but be romantic at the same time.
"I wish I had gloves. Your hands are shaking," Ty Lee says. "The wind is just awful on these beaches."
Ty Lee slowly reaches forward and picks up Azula's bright red hand. Her fingertips shake so slightly that only the most clueless woman on Earth would know it is a ploy. Azula is clever—a genius—but the most clueless woman on Earth when it comes to relationships.
Testing the waters, Ty Lee takes Azula's hand in hers for as long as she feels comfortable, then intertwines their fingers. She flinches even though Azula does not move.
Ty Lee asked brightly, her nerves concealed beneath a cheery tone and blithe eyes, "Do you want to keep walking?"
Azula considers pulling her hand away, but it is, in fact, freezing, and so she lets Ty Lee get away with it.
"Fine," says Azula as they walk hand in hand towards the water.
Ty Lee has never experienced something so romantic.
Azula hopes she is enjoying it, because she certainly is never holding hands with another human being ever again after this.