AN: I posted a portion of this sequel to Yellow Sundress yesterday, but it was rushed and I didn't like it. This is not at all the same thing I already posted; It's a complete rewrite. I also actually made it into a better sequel by having reference to the oneshot it's based on.
::Crushed Butterflies::
::Prologue::
Ty Lee wishes she could pretend that this is her teenage dream. But it is not, and she cannot deny that fact. She cannot convince herself that she does not want to be strong and stand up to Azula, to do more than just bicker and eventually give in.
This is better than the alternative. This timeline could be so much worse, the acrobat frequently reminds herself. And you should be glad that you're not doing it alone, even if Azula makes it difficult sometimes. At least you're not alone or dead.
Gradually, Ty Lee's resistance to assimilating into a world in which she feels like a pet half of the time becomes more and more futile. Azula tried to escape too; they were in it together. But of course that came to an end.
Power corrupted Azula. Absolute power corrupted her absolutely. But Ty Lee loves her absolutely too.
Ty Lee's hope dies in a palace, wearing a crown, living the life she thought would be absolutely perfect.
She never thought that her dreams could be so lonely.
Or that they would come with this price.
::
Ty Lee wakes and offers the morning the first feigned smile of the day.
Because this was her wish, wasn't it? She is living the life she dreamed of in secret. Her desire to be a dark queen to a tyrant was the kind of thing she refused to admit, even to herself, save for in bed late at night. It is the type of perverted fantasy that no one may ever know.
Now she has it, but it came with a cost that is steeper than she imagined it to be.
Azula wakes and feels a sinking sensation inside of her immediately. She has so much to do, and this disaster was difficult to anticipate. Going back in time is supposed to mean that you know all that will come next. But, of course, this cruel trick sent her not just back in time, but to another place altogether.
It was easy enough to figure out, once the shock began to fade. The dream, the wish was one different decision made. Everyone has those choices they wish they could change, moments they would give anything to go back and fix.
But there are repercussions that are not immediately seen.
The decision that was made in this timeline, a decision made twenty years before Azula and Ty Lee wound up in this cold, unfeeling mess, had a butterfly effect that seems irreversible now.
Azula slowly sits and takes a deep breath. The morning is good, even when she spent the night entertaining her wife's whims. While Azula may be contentedly selfish, she does think Ty Lee would lose her mind if she didn't have a little freedom.
It is another day as the two last people on Earth.
The concept is not literal, of course. There are thousands of people, but after what they have faced, those people might as well be decorations, reminders of a life long gone. In the morning, Ty Lee wakes first, and, of course, makes the decision to make tea for her wife, despite the fact that such a thing should be delegated to servants.
She sits up slowly and fumbles around for clothes as she breathes the air of another world, another place. It was jarring, at first, and horrifying to be placed in her situation. But now? Well, a person can get used to anything.
Ty Lee has decided to be happy with what she has, and the saddest and most discontented words ever voiced are "It might have been."
The Fire Lady rises from her bed beside Azula, and toys with her own hair. She glances once at the sunlight illuminating a very dark soul. But, in the end, the only soul Ty Lee will be able to understand. And love this strong hurts, hurts so bad.
"It might have been that they would have never gotten themselves into this."
Shadows of the corridors are punctured by sunlight every few steps, as Ty Lee walks through this intensely lonely palace.
"It might have been that they could have found a way out, somehow."
And she reaches where she wants to be. This life is where she wants to be too, and she must admit that to herself, else, she is just pretending.
"It might have been that Azula resisted the temptation of absolute power."
Ty Lee finds a box of tea leaves that is nearly empty. She sighs and then tries to turn herself around with the most positivity that she can muster.
"It might have been that Ty Lee resisted Azula."
That was Ty Lee choice, and she refuses to let it be the worst in her life.
Because Azula isn't suppressing Ty Lee; Ty Lee seeks it out.
They both have more dysfunctions, regrets and mistakes than most people have, since they have had nearly two lifetimes to fuck up.
Ty Lee is very content being Fire Lord Azula's doll. She was not once upon a time. In their life, in the future, in one of the multitude of universes that exist every time a decision is made ─ in their real life, in which they met as children and broke apart in betrayal after betrayal. Ty Lee was a Kyoshi Warrior, and then a mercenary, and Azula was going insane.
But they bound together, through suffering and passion. The drive of love the only thing keeping them hanging on. They were equal. Azula was more forceful and Ty Lee didn't mind bending to Azula's much more complicated needs and frivolous desires.
This world is different.
In this world, Ty Lee might have been completely happy if she were living it with no alternative shown.
It feels like going blind after being able to see.
::
Ty Lee has to admit that this world feels incredible when she hears the voice of the people. When she sees that every world has its benefits as well as its downsides. She always did have the very sick desire hidden in the dark of the night; it was the desire to reign by her side.
Of course, that had to remain as hidden as possible. But, all the same, Ty Lee cannot call this world a sad or disappointing place. It is what she always wanted, and it is so much easier than she fights she and Azula would have.
In the life they truly led, in the future they adapted to (one better than the other), they were in a broken marriage. They would, every night, scream until their voices were sore and the fights meant nothing, and then go back to hoping they could just gloss it over and keep their love alive.
It is also exactly what Azula wanted, and it seemed to be the only desire of theirs in tandem as people with a broken marriage. That is perhaps why it only hurts when she laughs; the one thing they could agree on became the permanent bond sealing them together.
Right now, Azula is speaking to the people in order to remedy their concerns. A dam has burst in the Phoenix Empire, and it was very clearly an intentional move. The illusion of safety can never been maintained forever, after all.
In fact, they are all very scared. Ty Lee is not. To tell the truth, reprieve would be a beautiful thing. She is looking at Azula, as everyone is, unable to peel their gaze from the charismatic woman saying words of consolation and rallying the Fire Nation's virulent passion to fight back.
Ty Lee does love to watch everyone gazing so lovingly at her. More so, the silence of the entire populace. Someone could hear a pin drop beneath the balcony, because the only sound that seems to exist is Princess Azula's voice. Even the wind has surrendered.
At last it ends, and there is applause despite the hysterics that the Fire Nation has flown into.
The Fire Lord and Fire Lady are walked by numerous guards and soldiers inside of the fortress passing as a palace. It looks lonelier every single day, and it feels like the post-apocalyptic wasteland in which Azula and Ty Lee are the only two people left alive.
They are completely and utterly alone.
Azula offers a night out for the first time in forever. "We can go to that place you want to try so much. It should be fine."
Her eyes cannot remain averted for long; she looks at her partner in time and knows that she has at least one person alongside her.
They are escorted to the bar of course, with definite, unspoken plans of escaping for a little while alone. Ty Lee, like she always does in places like these, attempts to make friends. Azula pities her deeply. She has no idea what Ty Lee is still holding onto after all of this time.
Azula sits alone as Ty Lee tries and fails to bond with the guards; the citizens are even more frightened to speak to her than them. Possibly because there might be some rumors of a Fire Lord doing some rather nasty things to people who even look at her wife.
Some true rumors.
::
When Ty Lee finds out about what Azula has done, she has no clue how to react. She cannot believe what turning back a clock could do to a person. And she wonders if it has done anything to her.
"And I imagine you also kissed him goodnight!" Azula finishes loudly.
Ty Lee says nothing for a moment until, "You're being paranoid. And jealous and it's not exactly attractive!"
"Neither is you flirting with everyone in sight!" and Azula is immovable.
Ty Lee says softly, "Saying hello to people other than you is not flirting."
"So you think," Azula says coldly.
The Fire Lady looks at a eighteen year old tyrant who was once a thirty year old trying to recover, trying to make a life for herself that had nothing to do with war and anger.
"You were..." Ty Lee wants to say better, but that will only make Azula worse. "This isn't you. Azula, you aren't the person that this world keeps telling you to be. Azula!"
"I'm not. I am acting exactly how I would."
"No..." Ty Lee swallows. "Your downfall humbled you, even though you still kept burning. You wanted things other than this. I can't see you like this."
"Well then you don't have to deal with me anymore. Someone take her to her room, and lock the door."
She walks away as Ty Lee elbows the guard reaching for her.
::
In the bar, "You guys need a break," Ty Lee says brightly, and she watches the slight twist of her wife's expression. "I was a soldier like you guys before I became Fire Lady. Let's get drinks!"
The soldiers and guards look uncomfortable about that, until Azula decides to speak up. She glances at them all, and knows that she might as well make it clear she isn't planning on having anyone's eyes gouged out. Life is boring, anyway.
"I will allow it," she says and Ty Lee's facial expression is that of a child told they are allowed to buy the entire candy store.
They do wind up together, and Ty Lee is glowing. The Fire Lady cannot remember the last time she didn't feel like there was no one in her world but Azula. But they still linger and have few places to do.
"I'm a soldier like them," Ty Lee complains, huffing out a sigh. "I don't know why they don't want to be my friends."
"You don't need friends; you have me," Azula says quiet calmly and Ty Lee does not know how to respond to that.
But here Ty Lee is, not protesting at all, not leaving like she swore to do so many times when they were thirty.
Azula and Ty Lee are fifty and they are twenty and they are going to be this trapped for every day after. It's not immortality; it is just being stuck many yesterdays ago.
Ty Lee likes to say that it is due to that that she doesn't make friends and sticks with Azula.
But it isn't.
::
That night, Ty Lee stumbles home, even though she is just a little bit tipsy. Azula is kissing her and biting her, but then she pulls away and explains that she has too much to do, and that the bar was a regrettable detour.
Ty Lee tries not to be discouraged, and decides to go make herself even more irresistible to Fire Lord Azula.
She tears her closet apart.
::
Ty Lee is wearing her new dress tonight, but Azula does not notice. She barely looks up from everything she is trying to do. You can sit here if you're quiet, Azula had clarified, and Ty Lee presumed that the new yellow dress and the Fire Lord's favorite perfume would pry Azula from her work.
But no. Azula does not even notice her at all.
::
Ty Lee sobs. In her old life, the one she earned, she would quietly shiver, her shoulders shaking. But she cannot help but wail, as this person, in this body, as a sixteen year old again! It isn't fair.
There are two women in this room, now sixteen instead of thirty-four, and there is a clear disparity between them. The throne room is illuminated in blue, but Azula is not on her throne. She is standing, albeit with Ty Lee kneeling and crying before her.
And here is Azula. Azula who Ty Lee thought had grown out of any temptation that changing the past and becoming Fire Lord would offer her. But Ty Lee was wrong. Azula was complicated and the type of person Ty Lee could not help but clash with, despite their love.
Their love was the only thing tying them together.
But Ty Lee cries not because of the burn, or because of how Azula's eyes have changed from the ones that were as alone in the Universe and seeking escape as Ty Lee's.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it? It's what we wanted. It's not my fault that you aren't careful what you wish for. And it's not my fault that you're being difficult," Azula snarls and Ty Lee can hear her voice falter. The Fire Lord does not believe those words, but she wants to.
And Ty Lee just stares at the floor beneath her, her palms scraped and pained as they press against the dark stone stained blue by the shadows of flames.
"Azula..." whispers Ty Lee, although she has no idea what to say next.
"I'm giving you the opportunity of a lifetime," Azula snaps, her eyes flashing. "Don't you want redemption? Don't you want a chance? That's what love is."
You wouldn't know love if it slapped you, is Ty Lee's only thought, but she holds her tongue.
"This is why we fought!" Ty Lee shouts.
Azula is silent.
::
Azula looks as if she is going to at last speak to Ty Lee, but, instead, she just rises from her unfinished work and lies down with her head on Ty Lee's lap. She closes her eyes and does not even recall what the color yellow is or that a new dress should be commented on.
They are in her office, which always smells of ink and ashy floral incense. Azula does look worn, as she so often does. On the royal balcony, she glows with life, but here, she wishes she were gone as much as Ty Lee does.
But this is what she wished for.
And she got it.
"You look good," Ty Lee remarks as she runs her fingers through Azula's hair.
"Mm," Azula replies, taking a deep breath and still not bothering to move. "I look awful."
"You're just tired. And of course you're tired; you're the ruler of a whole country," Ty Lee replies forcefully, daring her wife to disagree. Azula just shrugs noncommittally in response. "Also you could probably use a bit of sun, without giving rousing speeches, being a firebender and all."
"I forget what the outdoors looks like," Azula replies with a weak smirk as she sinks further into her wife. "Describe it to me."
Ty Lee pounces onto her and Azula does not even flinch. She has a way of being like the statues of herself sometimes, which can both be scary and endearing, depending on if she has a smirk or a two thousand yard stare. Right now is the smirk, and Ty Lee is glad of it.
She positions herself atop of Azula's hips, straddling her. The Fire Lord still does not open her eyes, but there is a slight flush on her cheeks and it makes Ty Lee feel incredibly powerful.
Yet, with her eyes closed, she will not be able to see your new dress... which is the entire point of this.
"Well, there's a lot of green," Ty Lee begins and Azula's smirk twists slightly more. "And it smells sometimes like rain and sometimes like heat and sometimes just gross and sometimes like flowers. And it usually makes me sneeze. And the sun is, uh, well the sun is this round and hot thing in the sky... the sky is... uh, wow, this is harder than I thought..."
Azula starts laughing and Ty Lee smiles faintly. "I don't think you have a forthcoming career as a storyteller anytime soon," Azula remarks.
"Open your eyes," Ty Lee says softly, leaning down. Azula purses her lips at the abrupt grinding of Ty Lee's hips against hers as she slides down her sore body.
"No," Azula replies sweetly and Ty Lee reaches forward with one hand, the other pressing down on Azula's shoulder to maintain her balance. With two fingers, she pushes up on Azula's eyelids, forcing her eyes open.
Azula does relent, which makes Ty Lee grin.
"There," Ty Lee declares quite proudly. "Happy?"
"Maybe," Azula whispers, her hands laying purchase to Ty Lee's lower back. Ty Lee bites down on her lip for a brief heartbeat before releasing Azula's shoulder and kissing her neck. And then sucking on her neck.
::
In the life she loved, the life she wishes she still had, Ty Lee taps her shaking fingers on the table in the percussive rhythm of fear. She is well over twenty and has not seen Azula in a very long time. But Zuko told her that she at least needed closure, if not passion rekindled.
Her instructions and protocol and reminders of the fact she can leave at any time are explicit, but she does not know how she will be able to stomach it. Or what it will be like for her to experience. Her heart pounds, and she is so afraid of what will walk through that door.
But it is just a girl she once knew, and Ty Lee has never forgotten her face.
"It is so adorable that my brother thinks he can reach me through my sentimental side. I don't have one, and you mean less to me than a robe I've outgrown," Azula says sweetly, and Ty Lee looks concerned. "Oh, does my normality disturb you? Am I not quite crazy enough to justify this?"
"This is a very beautiful place." Ty Lee wishes she could change the subject.
"It's not ugly." Azula did not anticipate being institutionalized again, but she has to admit that this exile is far more pleasant, far more beautiful, than where she was before.
"Are you happy?"
"What do you want?" Azula asks curtly and Ty Lee furrows her brow. The princess's golden eyes drift to Ty Lee's left hand. Bare as could be.
Grief is not quite as heavy as guilt, but it takes more from you.
::
It is easy to forget their awful situation when it is over, their skin heated and damp with sweat, their lips tasting of each other. Ty Lee still has her thigh against Azula's, their bodies still pressed together on the smooth chaise lounge.
Ty Lee's new yellow dress is lying on the floor, and she cautiously gathers it as she pulls away from the woman she married nearly a decade ago. Azula still does not even notice, even as Ty Lee waves it like a flag before putting it onto her body.
They are in some kind of bliss. Some reason to cling to this world.
"I love you," Ty Lee says as she pokes Azula's rib with one finger. "I love you.
Azula hesitates, and Ty Lee expects, I know, but Azula replies, "I... love you too."
So why does that not make Ty Lee happy? So why has everything died and faded to the point of embers that can still warm a hearth but do not rage with beauty?
"Do you want me to leave?" Ty Lee asks, sitting down on Azula's office chair as if it is her own throne.
"No," Azula replies before clearing her throat.
She is still naked, her skin pallid, more wan than ivory at this point. Drained, being Fire Lord has drained her and Ty Lee cannot blame her. Being handed a country as a mentally unstable child is taxing on a person. The same as being forcibly married to said mentally unstable child, but Ty Lee keeps that to herself.
"Are we hiding?" Ty Lee asks teasingly as she looks at the perpetually locked door.
"Yes."
"What are we hiding from?" Ty Lee truly hopes Azula is just playing along.
"Time," Azula replies and Ty Lee thinks she sees something in her other than an entirely empty woman. A candle burning for a brief while in a pitch black room.
"Okay," Ty Lee replies, touching her knees to her chin. "I'm pretty good at hiding."
They both are. They both are good at hiding from reality, their feelings, the past, their relationship flaws, the sickening nature of the past seven years of solitude, Azula's rise to disgusting power and Ty Lee's descent back to a girl she once was.
And Ty Lee is quite good at being hidden from absolutely everyone.
They wind up remaining there, hiding, for the remainder of the night.
Azula does not notice the new yellow dress, and Ty Lee knows it is petty.
::
As another day in the life of pained and unwilling time travelers ends, they lie in bed together. They are together, their legs intertwined. Ty Lee is at peace, despite how much turmoil is constantly bubbling within her. About the life she sacrificed and the dreams she had.
Azula sleeps poorly even if she has herself together when she is awake.
Currently, the two women are twenty-two, and have grown very used to the loneliness and complexity of this alternate timeline. It feels out of place to them, but Azula has started to love it for a plethora of reasons.
Her decisions were strongly questioned at first. Like her choice to give Zuko imprisonment instead of the death that father craved.
Because in the real future instead of the fake past, Zuko helped Azula more than he needed to. Much more than he needed to. Her brother is the reason that Azula is alive, and she refuses to kill him, even in a world where that never happened.
Azula's hesitance as she tried to remember what a world at war was like. As she found it surprisingly hard to stomach that the lives of people she hated were lost because of one small choice.
But we are getting far ahead of ourselves.
It makes the most sense to start from the beginning...