Position: Firebender: Someone returning home after a long day
Prompts: (Location) Ember Island, (AU) No bending, (Quote) "If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were" - Khalil Gibran
Word Count: 1672
As much as Ty Lee loved Ember Island and her job at the spa, she was always worn out by the end of the day. It felt like an eternity had passed when she finally came home. And for the last six months, the days seemed to only grow longer, considering all that had happened.
Azula and Ty Lee had been friends since elementary school, when Azula's parents moved from the capital to the paradisiacal beaches of Ember Island in an effort to save their marriage. Azula's father, Ozai, was a stock-broker that decided to retire after his wife left with Azula and her brother Zuko. Ty Lee never met Zuko but according to Azula, he was on the autism spectrum. Ty lee had to look up on the internet what that meant, and when she found out she had asked Azula if she could help somehow, but Azula just glared at her and walked out of the conversation.
Azula was an over-achiever that excelled in anything and everything just to please her father. Ozai never missed an appointment to see his daughter bash their opponents in whatever Azula was doing; spelling contests, science fairs and other similar events.
Then the harsh years of adolescence came and so did Ty Lee's realization that she wasn't into the 'conventional' in regards to dating. She had turned herself into the stereotype girl from the movies that changes boyfriend with the month, and yet she never felt quite right in any of those relationships. Azula always chided Ty Lee for doing that to herself when she had so much potential to become more than an empty-headed girl.
Ty Lee felt things for Azula that she thought were normal. After all Azula was her only friend, but as the years went by, Ty Lee realized that all those quizzes in the girl's magazines talking about how to tell if you were falling for someone ended up in Ty Lee thinking of Azula. Azula was still the over-achiever she had been but she had changed too, though Ty Lee wasn't sure if it was for the better. Azula had mood swings, always had to be right, and completely perfect, to the point of intimidating and making herself feared just so that people would obey her. Those that didn't or got in her way were quickly brushed aside or in more radical instances seemed to have horrible luck and violent injury. There was never proof Azula had anything to do with that but people became very wary of her and kept away. All except Ty Lee who stood besides Azula through it all.
Then that awful night came. It was late, past midnight almost one, when Ty Lee heard the sirens of the fire trucks racing up the street and taking a turn left on the corner, onto the street where Azula lived. Out of fear, and a little curiosity, Ty Lee went out following the noise, only to feel fear grip her heart as she saw the column of fire and smoke coming from the area of Azula's house. She didn't know what was worse, Azula's lovely house burnt to the ground or the fact that Azula was laughing hysterically in her front yard while the paramedics tried to immobilize her, one of them holding his cheek after Azula clawed at him.
The next couple of weeks were the worst Ty Lee had ever lived through; the investigators found that Azula's parents had been doused in gasoline and her brother had been asphyxiated before the fire started and Azula was the one who held the match. The forensic study found the match chemical-compounds in her finger nails.
What had driven Azula to do that was a mystery to everyone, even the judge who had heard of Azula, whom had shown talent and interest in becoming a lawyer. The fits of laughter she went into after that night helped her case, by declaring her mentally incapable to be put under trial and she was sent to an asylum until she regained her senses.
That was when Ty Lee broke down. Living without Azula was a torture like none other. She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't focus on school, heck, she wouldn't even sleep more than a few hours each night, Azula was all she could think about.
Ty Lee wasn't sure how she made it through college, all she remembers was the constant stream of letters she sent Azula and the periodical reminder from the asylum that Azula couldn't receive news from the outside world in fear it could worsen her condition.
Then one day, when she was finishing her Masters in Business Administration, she got a letter; it started with an apology from the man that had written it, introducing himself as Azula's therapist and explaining that Azula had been deemed as capable of reading one of the letters Ty Lee sent and she immediately replied, but the letter was in toilet paper for fear Azula could relapse and harm herself.
It also said Azula had demanded, but more likely pleaded, to have the letter transcribed onto actual paper and then the therapist asked Ty Lee if she could come visit her.
After reading that part fifteen times, Ty Lee found herself in an airplane which was on its way to the city where Azula's asylum was.
Doctor Liu Taishu was waiting for her when she arrived to the asylum; it was peaceful place with a huge garden and Ty Lee could hear a concert of birds, all with their different songs, all the time she was there.
Dr. Taishu greeted her and, jokingly, thanked her for existing. Curious, Ty Lee asked him what he meant and the doctor glanced around and walked her around the asylum explaining.
Most of the time Azula had been there, she was catatonic, she was force-fed and refused to talk. Dr. Taishu got her case file since he was the rookie in the hospital and Azula was deemed a lost case, so much that even a rookie could handle her.
Dr. Taishu's first order was to have her into a withdrawal cycle after he read all the drugs she was in just to keep her still. Once that was achieved, Azula was just quiet, but she talked if things got her attention.
Dr. Taishu got little out of Azula besides her name and a few facts like her birthday and such. Every so often he caught Azula glancing at the window of the room they had a sessions in. At first the doctor dismissed it as a sign she wasn't interested in talking, until he heard one of the administrative workers complain about the stubbornness of one of Azula's friends, whom never got the hint to stop sending letters, no matter how many times she was told Azula couldn't get any.
Taishu admitted at that point of the story to have gone snooping and reading some of the letters, and confessed to be touched with Ty Lee's feelings towards Azula, fully knowing what she had done.
What no one knew, and left Dr. Taishu horrified, was what Azula started to bring up once he allowed Azula to have some of the letters as the therapy advanced. Here they stopped in front of a big, metal door and the doctor signalled for Ty Lee to take a look inside through the small opening it had.
Behind that door was Azula. She had, or rather they had, cut her hair short and she was really thin, she seemed bored and was staring at the ceiling when she noticed there were people staring at her.
After that, Taishu saw Ty Lee do wonders, like actually getting Azula to show emotions, and not before long, with an every-so-often visit, Azula was seemed fit for a trial away time with Ty Lee.
Dr. Taishu had been very insistent that if Azula was showing signs of problem, she was to be sent back to the asylum for her own good, but in the end Ty Lee preferred to die herself than to let Azula be caged again.
It had been six months since then, and in those six months her mother's advise on love affairs kept ringing in her head. 'If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.' And she was sure as hell she would make Azula hers forever after she let her go for all those years.
The days had been full of emotions, some good and bad, days of joy and days of sadness as Azula, the new Azula, started to open up to what led her to do that to her family. Her mother's neglect of Azula's needs in favor of looking after her brother, her father becoming a drunk, her parents arguments and that vile moment, that awful moment where her own father claimed her innocence after years of hitting her for every and all mistakes Azula ever committed in his presence.
Ty Lee was surprised she lasted that long after a while of having Azula open up to her.
Every time she thought of that, she buried it with the good emotions Azula had shared with her. The joy of getting new letters, the happiness of seeing her after so long, their confession for each other's feelings and the night that followed where Ty Lee finally got what she had been looking from all those years with boys, Azula being alongside Ty Lee's mother when Ty Lee got her master's degree and the past-months inauguration of Ty Lee's spa, where Ty Lee was both manager and masseuse whenever she could.
To Ty Lee, coming home never felt such a 'must have' in her day; the house smelling of tea and Azula waiting for her, still a little her old serious-self, and her old quiet-self who just sat there without saying much.
But when Ty Lee looked into Azula's eyes, she knew Azula was going to be hers forever.
A/N: I'm thinking of doing a weekend follow up chapter where we can see how Azula is acting now. Please tell me you opinion, reader!