Blueberry Icing

by HardCandyCherry

. . . .

Azula's 9th Birthday

Handwriting

. . . .

For her best friend in the whole world's ninth birthday, Ty Lee makes a handwritten birthday card filled with inside jokes. Ty Lee's mother groans and grumbles about how inappropriate that is to gift to a princess, and replaces it with a fancy card made by a calligrapher. Of course, Ty Lee shoves her own card deep down into her pink pocket and plans to give it to Azula anyway.

Azula is... not amused by her birthday. Or at least not satisfied by it and Ty Lee is not quite sure why. She can't think of a reason for Azula to be unhappy about something as awesome as this. Oh wow her mom though. No, Ty Lee is not stupid enough to think that Azula cares about that.

"You're really not having fun, are you?" Ty Lee asks as she hangs upside down from a tree. Azula looks lovely no matter which way Ty Lee is positioned, and she looks super good today. Her hair is in these interesting curls that have not budged a bit for the entirety of the party.

"No. I'm not. These birthday parties have nothing to do with me, or you or anyone else they're for. They are exclusively a way for parents to flaunt how much they love their children and show up each other's extravagance," Azula states articulately and Ty Lee does not know what to say. She does not know what half those words mean, but she knows what Azula is saying.

"But birthdays are great! You can do whatever you want!" Ty Lee sings as she swings back and forth, the insides of her knees scraping against the coarse tree bark.

"I can do whatever I want any other day," Azula replies honestly.

Ty Lee tries from another angle. "Even if you don't care about presents or parties or anything, you have to be happy that you survived for another year! Isn't that what it's about?" Ty Lee stabilizes herself and bats her eyelashes. It makes her dizzy, but is certainly worth it.

Azula pretends to contemplate that, which is a grand gesture of friendship from her.

"Yes, but from that perspective I am a day closer to my death."

"But every day is!" Ty Lee says it very cheerily, as if it was about puppies and not mortality. "Right? You never know when or how you're going to die either!"

Princess Azula starts laughing, which is a kind of weird sound since it's her rarest laugh. Ty Lee has noticed that Azula has a fake laugh, a mocking laugh and a real laugh, and this one is the third one. Yes! Ty Lee is a step towards making Azula's birthday happier.

"That is true. I could be murdered. No, it would be an assassination, wouldn't it? Poisoning, perhaps? Or maybe I'll fall out of tree and break my neck." She cocks an eyebrow and Ty Lee does not get it. Maybe that is for the best.

Ty Lee thinks for a moment. "It's also another day closer to you being Fire Lord."

That makes Azula's eyes sparkle, but she tries futilely to hide it. The prospect sounds nice but, "There isn't an age limit. The youngest in history was barely older than me."

"Well..." Ty Lee keeps her mouth shut. Azula knows she was going to blurt something stupid out about Ozai having an age limit like Azulon did... not that it mattered very much. "I kinda believe in destiny. Right? Like everything is leading up to something that somebody else already decided was going to happen."

"A world like that sounds terrible."

"You'd like it if you were the one deciding." Ty Lee laughs, sways a little too hard and a piece of parchment flutters out of her pocket. She tries to catch it with a huge gasp, but then has to catch herself on the thick branch instead.

Azula plucks it off of the damp grass with a smug expression and Ty Lee simpers. Ty Lee had begun to agree with her mother about it not being an appropriate gift for a princess. Azula is a lot of things to Ty Lee on the inside; Ty Lee sees what Azula is at the core and what she is destined to be and it is bright and beautiful.

It is written in the stars, in the writing of some nameless spirits who really did bless Azula with luck the moment she was born. Ty Lee has a thought about Azula's mother and swallows, the saliva catching in her throat due to her position; birthdays kind of involve the person who gave birth to you.

And presents are given to mothers really often. Ty Lee now feels even worse about how much she gets annoyed at Azula's very cold and sterile view of the world that is somehow more frustrating than Mai's cynicism.

But there it is! Azula's real laugh again as she looks at the paper and rolls her eyes. Oh, but it's a good eye roll and they both know that. Ty Lee grins victoriously and Azula sees it.

"You really do want to impress me. It's a level I have never seen in anyone before, and I'm sure you understand what high praise that is after seeing all of those people and their horrible efforts," Azula says smoothly and Ty Lee mostly doesn't understand her again, but she does understand the blush on ivory cheeks that Azula likely does not notice, and therefore cannot hide.

"I want to make you like birthdays. If that's impressing you, well, yeah, I wanna do that too. I mean, you really impress me."

"Of course I do. That's unsurprising." Azula glances over the card again, at Ty Lee who clearly has not been forced a thousand times to practice perfect handwriting and ancient characters until her hands were too sore to firebend. And then be forced to firebend directly afterwards, no matter the pain.

Azula has the sudden urge to push Ty Lee out of the tree.

And so she does.

"It is my birthday and I can do whatever I want, remember?" is Azula's unwarranted explanation as the card disappears into Azula's possession and never resurfaces.