Eternity
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#001
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It starts how every attempt to redeem the fucked up, wicked pretty thing always does. Azula has seen it at least ten times before, but Ty Lee is playing up the romantic act. It is new, but somehow even more dull and predictable than the others.
"I can't make you," Ty Lee says in a voice like sugar with eyes like honey but Azula thinks she preferred those who were bitter about her resistance.
"Good. No one else seems to have figured that out yet," Azula replies without any acknowledgment of the woman she has not seen in years sitting on her heels, kneeling, kneeling in front of a fallen goddess.
Ty Lee goes into the sappy cliché that Azula was waiting for this whole time. "But I want to tell you that I still love you and I never stopped."
"Is that why you're here trying to fix me?" Azula snaps. She mostly is livid at herself for even entertaining Ty Lee's inevitable attempt to make Azula all good and sweet for ten minutes.
"Yes."
Azula meant that cruelly; she did not expect that answer. And so she softly exhales through chapped lips that Ty Lee wants desperately to touch.
"Your overconfidence is as cute as it is sickening," Azula says breathily.
"You're the kind of person who wakes up one day and decides to change the world." Ty Lee smiles wistfully and Azula doesn't get it. She knew this would happen, but she didn't know it would be so boring. Usually when people try this type of thing they don't last so long without an emotional explosion. "I always loved that about you."
"How sweet. Your visit has melted my heart, and tomorrow will be the day I change my life." Azula stands and lingers for a moment. "Visiting hours are over."
She walks away and is grateful that torturous conversation came to an end. Ty Lee has such grand hopes for the impossible. Azula is unsurprised, because someone in love with her would have to be delusional.
As Azula's silhouette fades into the palace hall, Ty Lee leans back on her numb feet and chews on her lower lip. She knew that would happen, even if she couldn't help but hope. It all has to start with Azula running and hiding, until she realizes she can't do that anymore.
Azula slams the door of her plush cell and it echoes far, far from the Western Wing.
To her it is over.
But this, Ty Lee thinks to herself as she sets her palm on the glass table and pushes herself to her feet, is not how the story is going to end.