A/N: This is a oneshot for Autumn Tyzula Week 2017, for the prompt "Red."
Inspired entirely and wholeheartedly by my muse Lana Del Rey.
KISS ME HARD BEFORE YOU GO
I got my red dress on tonight
Dancin' in the dark in the pale moonlight
Done my hair up real big, beauty queen style
High heels off, I'm feelin' alive
"Summertime Sadness" — Lana Del Rey
WINTER
Azula has her red dress on tonight.
Ty Lee loves that.
It makes her a bit nervous; tonight she needs to tell Azula news that could be good or bad. Nothing ever seems simple with the princess, especially when Ty Lee simmers with guilt over the past years she avoided the mess for which she blames herself.
"Hey, Azula," whispers Ty Lee, breaking the lengthy silence.
"Yes?" primly replies the princess, turning around to face her former best friend.
Ty Lee panics and instead blurts out, "You're the best."
"I know that." But I like to hear it all the same, Azula thinks to herself.
Ty Lee loudly asks, nimbly leaping to her feet, "Will you dance with me?"
"Will I dance with you?" Azula scoffs and Ty Lee blushes.
"Yeah. Why not? It's my last night here, right?" Ty Lee feels her heart jump up into her throat when she lies to Princess Azula. It still scares her even after all of these years.
"Right," ambiguously replies Princess Azula, and Ty Lee strides towards her, waiting to be taken by the hand and moving into a perfectly timed slow dance.
They spin slowly together in the dark, in the pale moonlight. The cold winter air does not disturb them for even a single second. They are in a reverie, bound together.
In unison, they come to stop. The wildness in the icy night ends abruptly.
"Hey, uh, Azula, uh, I… I was going to ask you something tonight. I'm really nervous and—"
"Spit it out," demands Azula, her tone something Ty Lee vaguely missed. She kind of loves that, because Azula was weak and broken last time she saw her, and now she... she is something like herself again.
And it only makes Ty Lee want to be honest, want to dare to do something she should have done a long time ago.
"Will you date me?" Ty Lee croaks, smiling despite her terror. She hopes Azula does not strike her down with lightning.
Silence.
That might be worse than death. Ty Lee wants to be sick while she waits for an answer.
Azula shakes her head. Her tone falters and her eyes glisten with an alien vulnerability when she states, "We did not even work when we lived next to each other. I doubt we will work long distance."
"I'm here for a year, y'know? I was going to tell you that today too but—"
"I already knew. My brother told me."
"Oh." Ty Lee blushes again. "So, uhm, will you…?"
"I will give you a chance. Under certain conditions."
"Anything," Ty Lee breathlessly says.
"We will not label it. We will not necessarily be dating, we will just be… somewhat together. Just be… fluid about it. We will not have sex right away. We will not tell anyone. Do those conditions suit you or have you changed your mind as you so often do?"
"I like those conditions. They're good. They're the best, just like you."
"Alright. So it begins."
"Do you… one more question… do you forgive me?"
Silence.
Ty Lee hears nothing but the frigid winter wind.
With the conviction of an empress, Azula declares, "I don't forgive, and I don't forget. You'll serve your sentence of all the years you abandoned me in favor of my enemies."
Ty Lee murmurs, protuberant eyes averted, "Azula…"
"You're slippery. You're a traitor. You know that? You'd rather give yourself over to my enemies than stick by my side. You could've at least suffered for me."
Ty Lee weakly offers, "I did suffer for—"
Shrilly, Azula snarls, "No. It does not compare. Nothing compares to what I endured."
Ty Lee does not point out that Azula did not endure that for her. She knows it would be pointless, and perhaps irrelevant to this argument.
"Why do you suddenly want to date me? Because I seem sane enough to absolve your guilt."
"No," insists Ty Lee in earnest. "I've loved you forever and all, but I thought I was done loving you, and then, I—I really did think I was over you—but when I got here yesterday and got to the palace and saw you standing there watching me and I just felt that warmth in me again. Heating me up. I saw—I saw it like a color. I saw it like red. Like the warmest red in the whole Universe, even better than pink. Like a fire that saves you from a snowstorm or something dumb like that. I looked at Hiromi—my friend who's staying here too—and she asked me about you since everybody does and I said I wanted to be your friend again and she said that there was no chance because nobody looked at a friend the way I looked at you."
Azula does not know what to say. Few things leave her speechless, but that does.
"I was unaware you could string that many words together," says Azula, trying to cover her momentary vulnerability with cruelty. Ty Lee knows her well enough to see through it. "It's—it's late. Maybe you should go. I will see you tomorrow, anyway."
"Will you miss me?" Ty Lee squeaks, petrified to ask but unable to stop herself.
Azula huskily whispers, touching Ty Lee's hand, "Not if you kiss me hard before you go."
"I won't be gone long." Ty Lee softly smiles.
Almost playfully, Azula says, "Do not argue with me."
"I don't want to," breathes Ty Lee.
She leans in and presses her lips against Azula's.
SPRING
Azula keeps her lips red to seem like cherries in spring.
Ty Lee loves that.
They were pale when Azula was broken. And sometimes Azula breaks things and breaks down and makes Ty Lee want to endlessly dote on the hurt girl, the girl who sees faceless figures viciously closing in on her with claws bared.
But they are red now, red like happiness, red like power, red like love, red like the beating heart Ty Lee would tear out of her own chest to make the princess feel better on her worst days when she does not paint her lips like cherries in spring and lets her hair fall in disarray and claws at her inner arms with her sharp nails.
When Ty Lee thinks about it, she worries about her deepest concern.
As much as she adores the princess like she always did, sometimes she does not know if she loves Azula or if she loves the danger.
They hide their affair until the cold weather fades away and the mornings no longer bring frost—the closest the Fire Nation gets to snow, which Ty Lee often laments—and the rain pours and pours from halfway placid skies.
Ty Lee lies beside Azula, surrounded by red silk and red curtains and red clothes discarded on the pitch black stone floor. She barely remembers waking up and seeing nothing but blue and green. The Fire Nation is harsher. Azula is harsher than anyone else Ty Lee has ever loved before.
"Hey, Azula, we've been dating for a while, huh?" Ty Lee says.
"Why do you waste so many words?"
"Oh. Uh, just trying to make conversation."
"Well, it's boring conversation."
"I bet you have interesting things to say. Will you tell me a story? Please, princess," Ty Lee says, softly smiling as she stares up at the ceiling.
"I don't know. My life has been boring for too long. At least the parts I remember," Azula quietly says, trying to forget someone listens to her words. "I appreciate one thing about you."
"What?" Ty Lee starts to sit up before she stops herself.
It begins to rain outside.
"You don't talk to me like everyone else does. You don't talk to me like I'm made of glass. It's almost like nothing changed at all," Azula states, scrunching up some of the scarlet fabric in her soft hand. Ty Lee watches as if it is the most interesting thing she has ever seen. "I missed people worshipping me. Or, at least, pretending to worship me."
'Ty Lee, all she cares about is herself.'
'Ty Lee, she's a narcissist with no feeling for anywhere else.'
'Ty Lee, you're too old and too much stronger to keep pretending.'
And Ty Lee can only brush those thoughts away as she lies in beautiful quiet, no sound but the wind and rain that will bring the gorgeous summer fire lilies she likes to weave into her braid.
Azula would never tell anyone, even perhaps herself, but if she died right now, she would die happy for the first time in a long time.
"I have… I have my guard duty," Ty Lee hates to say.
Azula is secretly glad of it. She hates how close she is to being close to Ty Lee. It only hurt her in the past, when she reached the brink of intimacy with the girl. Ty Lee stabbed her in the back.
Coldly, Azula warns, "I might forget about you if you don't kiss me hard before you go."
It is an order Ty Lee is happy to obey.
SUMMER
Azula is white lies, black beaches and blood red pomegranates.
Ty Lee loves that.
They spend the summer on Ember Island. It takes Azula's mind off of how much she despises her current life, and Ty Lee comes with her as an attractive distraction. And it is one of the best summers of Ty Lee's young life.
The two women find a beach of coal black sand. It is one of the prettiest things Ty Lee has ever before laid eyes on.
They sit and the words they exchange remain hollow for ages, like they always do. Azula needs to be worn down before she decides to say anything meaningful. But Ty Lee clings to her every word and remains patient.
Ty Lee may be eager and struggle with delayed gratification, but she would gladly wait for love. Azula hands Ty Lee a dark red blanket.
"I'm not lying on this sand."
"Lying?" Azula's expression sours. Ty Lee sees a flicker that makes her think her princess might shatter. Maybe Azula likes to be treated like the princess she deserves to be, by someone at least pretending to be loyal to a nation she abandoned and a love she betrayed, but she still shivers on the brink of destruction. She stares at the abyss and it stares back at her, but she pretends to be fine even when she wishes she was dead.
Ty Lee offers cheerily, "We might as well. The sun is coming out."
Ty Lee jumps up with a wide smile and waves the blanket in the warm air several times before setting it flat on the pitch black sand. She sets down the basket of fruit and candy she put together in hopes of a romantic picnic with her unlabeled love.
They lie side by side.
"Do you think we could be girlfriends by now?" Ty Lee asks, confident as could be. The bright summer sunshine feels like it could last forever.
"Fine." Azula shrugs. "It does not bother me."
It is a white lie on a black beach. Azula just focuses on the red beneath her.
"We don't have to be," whispers Ty Lee. "I just thought maybe we could be that. We act like it and now more people I think are figuring it out and stuff."
Azula purses her lips. Ty Lee basks in the sunlight as she waits for more pretty words.
"It does bother me." Azula hates being honest. It feels like lying does to a moral person; her feelings of guilt reversed long ago. "Because I knew a very long time ago that you will be the closest I ever get to being… close."
Ty Lee knows Azula does not want an answer. She sees the flush in her cheeks that usually only stems from rage, not embarrassment. Azula values herself too much to feel humiliation, but right now she hates herself for admitting that well-kept secret.
She sits up and starts taking off her clothes. Of course, she knows that this is something that makes them close, and maybe Azula never wants to touch her again after being briefly honest.
"I won't leave you. I won't betray you. I wouldn't. I don't have a reason to," says Ty Lee and Azula inches upwards. They sit across from each other, Ty Lee reaching to undo her own swimsuit, the red fabric she covered herself with cast aside.
Azula takes off her clothes.
Ty Lee looked away in the past, even if they would tear into each other moments later. She keeps looking, but does not make eye contact. Azula does not want to be treated like anything less than she once was, and Ty Lee does not see her as anything but royalty.
Ty Lee is loyal to that crimson flag again. She has respect for the princess, even if the princess feels like a prisoner too often.
And Ty Lee gazes at her maybe girlfriend's perfect body, nipples stark red against ivory skin. They fall into each other until sunset.
Ty Lee barely notices it.
Azula watches the dying sun reflect on the waves. She does not want to talk; Ty Lee begins to babble but one livid look shuts her up.
She does not mind the silence.
Ty Lee gazes at the ruby skies and wants to live in this moment forever.
"I think we should get dressed," Azula says, neglecting the picnic basket Ty Lee is about to open.
Ty Lee gets up too quickly and Azula's stomach flips. Did she do something wrong? Did she break this one and only bond?
She grabs Ty Lee's hand, seeing the red marks that claws left in moments of lovely ecstasy.
"I'm—I promised not to leave," Ty Lee whispers.
"I don't trust you enough to watch you go a foot away without proving your loyalty."
"I'd do anything!" Ty Lee eagerly chirps, smiling as reassuringly as she can manage.
"Kiss me hard before you go."
Ty Lee gladly does so.
& FALL
Azula wakes up in the morning to red, blue and yellow skies.
Princess Azula loves that.
When Azula looks past the sunrise, she gazes at the crisp falling leaves. Red, orange, yellow, dancing on the lazy gusts of damp lukewarm wind.
The day seems pleasant enough, and Azula thinks that of few days. Then, she recalls that her girlfriend must depart today. It sickens her to the core, and, suddenly, the leaves no longer look beautiful and the multicolored sky appears hideous.
She watches Ty Lee get dressed. Azula puts on the red dress she wore the night Ty Lee dared to ask her out for the first time. But she is beneath dark clouds instead of pale moonlight. She does her hair as slowly as she can, not wanting to look at the girl who so happily leaves her.
"Well, let's go."
They walk, Azula arguing with her brother for at least twenty minutes to leave the palace unsupervised. It would make many people unhappy, but she tends to care only about her own happiness. He at last lets her break free.
Ty Lee trembles as she stands on the dock.
She wants nothing to scare her, but it does. So much does. Azula scares her and she still does not know if she loves the princess or the danger or the memories she is ashamed to miss.
Her days as a girl in the war were the best of her life, but she has told no one that.
"Go. I think it is time for our affair to end. We may resume it if we wish," Azula says and Ty Lee feels her heart drop to her feet and burn to a crisp with cold fire.
"Is that just because… because of distance."
"Because I loathe people who break promises to me. You said you would not leave, and then you just let me think perhaps you would be wise enough to change your mind. You have no idea what glory you are losing by leaving me behind."
"Azu—"
"Do not interrupt me!" The princess flushes that red that terrifies Ty Lee, that wonders if her life will end in murder.
Because if you love someone enough, you let them get away with murder, even if it is your own. So, Ty Lee loves that angry red as much as she loves any other color.
Yet, she protests as fearlessly as she can, "Azula, I did—"
"Maybe my brother was right not to let me off of my leash because—"
"Azula, I did change my mind. I'm staying. I'm staying with you," Ty Lee whispers, struggling to form the words from her fear.
The princess stands mute as the color fades from her beautiful face, the face that haunted Ty Lee for ages. The former Kyoshi Warrior weakly smiles at her.
"Oh. I… I suppose we have some free time in the city then." Azula hates herself for saying something so shallow but she would hate herself more for saying something weak.
Ty Lee feels her heart flutter and her gut twist and her head spin. Azula remains grounded.
"Let me run and get some of those cinnamon buns you like. I'll be right back." Ty Lee beams.
Azula grabs her by the hand. Ty Lee's heart jumps.
But the princess does not say anything mean.
She murmurs, "Just kiss me hard before you go."
Ty Lee wordlessly obliges, her lips twisted into a soft smile.
end