AN: This is a drabble series of fragments, many of the drabbles contained in the same chapter, but also some on their own. The chapter lengths vary from pretty long to only 500 words, and so I'm planning on updating 2 - 3 times a week. I have six of them written now and they really do vary. It's rated K plus for now and will be for a while, but it will likely go up to T once they're teenagers.

It's completely chronological, but it's written in a really loose style to be kind of like disjointed memories. And it's all broken into eight parts.

Red Ribbons in her Braid

Prologue

Once Upon a Time

1. Nameless

Once upon a time, there was a princess.

She lived in a city that she never knew half of, trapped in a world that was designed by those who held power over her, and wanted to use her to gain more power.

Once upon a time, there was a princess who went to school with a girl who followed her home enough days that the princess decided to keep her. Together, they played a thousand games. From eight year old pirates to ten year old soldiers to fourteen year old manipulators greedy for each other, they were experts in games.

Some of these games were dangerous, like climbing trees and playing with fire. Others were more dangerous, like trying to make each other fall in love or to reclaim what was lost long ago.

But in all of the games, they ruled the world, and as the princess's crown glittered under the rising sun, in the summer light the girl's braid shone like one of her own. Maybe they would, as they dared to occasionally think, rule the world together one day.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved that princess, and, despite the risk, her games were ones the girl was willing to play for the rest of her life.

And this is their story.

~Part One~
Childhood

Games

2. First Glance

At six years old, Ty Lee and Azula become friends by brute force. Ty Lee is taken to the palace and simply left there, looking up at the adults talking severely around her and then glancing over at two girls her age. She grins at them; she has always made friends easily. They return stony stares that Ty Lee has never experienced before.

Ty Lee walks to the two girls as her mother nudges her towards them. They both already seem absorbed in each other, but Ty Lee has never had problems making friends, given spending her childhood constantly surrounded by others her age.

"Hi," she declares as she watches her mother walking away, and realizes she is left alone. She has been set up on diplomatic playdates before and she is not blind to the fact that she should try her best to be nice to the princess, of all people.

The two girls turn to her almost simultaneously, and give her a mutual look of disdain, one far more expressive than the other. That is the first time Ty Lee has ever experience that reaction, and, wringing her hands and tugging on her small fingers, she looks nervously to her mother, and sees that she has vanished without even saying goodbye.

"Hi," Ty Lee repeats, refusing to let her voice shake at all. The girls still just stare at her and she feels somewhat like she is having her entire body and heart judged by Fire Sages.

"Come with us," commandingly says the princess, after exchanging another wordless glance with her friend. Ty Lee follows them as they start walking, toying madly with the hem of her skirt as she tries to feel less uncomfortable.

Ty Lee sits down, cross-legged, once asked and ushered into the princess's bedroom. It is beautiful, and Ty Lee does note how nothing seems out of place. It looks untouched, not like a young girl lives in it.

"My mother says that I have to be friends with you," Azula says coldly and Ty Lee opens her mouth to say that her mother does too, before promptly closing it. "She didn't, however, say when I had to be friends with you."

"Hm?" Ty Lee looks confused and Mai pities her for a moment.

"Mai and I have been discussing the terms of our potential friendship," Azula says with a smile that is not very reassuring. "You will have to pass a series of tests before you are allowed to be friends with us. They stop if you quit, and only then."

This is definitely not the kind of play-date Ty Lee is used to.

.

3. Gone

"I want her gone," Azula says calmly to Mai as they are at last alone and Ty Lee went home.

"Yeah, but your mother said that you couldn't demand her to leave," Mai comments and Azula pouts.

"I know. Which is why, Mai, obviously, we have to make her demand to leave herself."

.

4. Pass/Fail, Live/Die

Test One. Azula, Mai and Ty Lee sneak through the palace like shadows in the night, emerging in a room that Ty Lee doubts they are allowed inside. It has a dining table with a mixture of very stale teas and other refreshments. Mai and Azula decide to mix them all together, and Ty Lee does drink it.

Test Two.The princess declares that they will be playing a game where they face their worst fears. Ty Lee has never heard of said game, but she supposes it cannot hurt. She honestly admits her worst fear is spider-wasps. Mai says that her worst fear is being locked alone with herself.

Azula says she is not afraid of anything and she is the referee, anyway, she adds. To show it is not rigged against Ty Lee, Mai is the first to face her fear. She does it admirably well, in Ty Lee's mind. Mai is locked in alone with herself for a reasonably long amount of time, and emerges looking not at all shaken.

It does occur to Ty Lee at that moment that Mai was probably lying. And Ty Lee truly needs to stop being so trusting at this point.

"Because Mai was afraid of being locked up alone, it's only fair that you are locked up with your worst fear. That's how it works."

And so Ty Lee finds herself locked in a closet with a spider-wasp.

Test Three. Azula and Mai are utterly stunned that Ty Lee has yet to quit. They thought that locking her in a closet with a spider-wasp would do it, but it simply did not. So they up the ante, of course.

"It's not even that far of a jump," Azula prods insistently, tapping Ty Lee's back.

"We don't want to kill you," Mai assures, although she thinks she is talking to herself at this point.

"You like to jump over things and twirl. There's a much higher chance of you breaking your neck doing a cartwheel than jumping from my windowsill to that piece of roof," Azula says sweetly and Ty Lee grimaces.

So be it. She jumps.

.

5. Teasing

Azula sighs, her knees knocking together as she lies on her bed with her nose scrunched. It has been ten of these playdates, and ten increasingly more impossible tasks. She is at Mai's house, seeing as it is so close to the palace that she can escape here most whenever she pleases.

"Do you think maybe she's some kind of superhuman?" Azula suggests and Mai shakes her head. "Why not? Maybe she is a super soldier bred for the war and that's why I'm supposed to be so nice to her."

Mai does not know what to say to that as she closes her eyes and tries to disappear into the pillow her small body is wrapped around. "I think maybe this is getting really boring. I think that grabbing her by her braid after pushing her out of a tree is kind of sad and beneath you."

Azula clenches her jaw and exhales sharply. She does hate how right Mai is sometimes.

"No. I know you said we shouldn't try to kill her but..."

"Ugh." Mai has no response. "You kind of seem to like playing with her."

"I like playing with her the way an owl likes playing with an elephant-rat," Azula snaps and Mai holds back a snicker.

"You're pretty defensive." And Mai is quiet for a moment. "Does Azula have a girlfriend?"

"No. Shut up. We're going to kill her if you say that."

"Azula has a girlfriend..."

"I will smother you with your own pillow."

Whispered, much more quietly. "Azula has a girlfriend..."

.

6. Mother

"Azula is so mean to me," Ty Lee whines to her mother as the elder woman slowly undoes her daughter's braid. "She nearly ripped my head off today!"

Ty Lee points accusingly at the red marks on her scalp. Ty Lee's mother has heard this time and time again, and her daughter never stops complaining about Azula or Mai, both of which outrank her and Ty Lee cannot understand she is fortunate enough to be playing with.

"Honey, I'm sure she'll warm up to you." Her mother removes the final ribbon and sets it inside of the drawer.

"She is just ugh," Ty Lee whines, smashing her head into the vanity table. Her mother cringes and holds her shoulders to keep her from doing that again. "She makes my tummy hurt. I tried to play with other girls today and she got really mad."

Her mother's eyes flash and Ty Lee sees she is about to side with Azula. Of course.

"Just give her a chance," says the nervous older woman, and Ty Lee realizes she will not win.

Ugh. She supposes she will have to force Azula to be her friend, if it is the last thing she does. And if Azula bends, Mai will too.

Ty Lee goes to bed and when her mother quenches the flames in the lamps, and wonders what she is supposed to do. She thinks that trying again is the stupidest thing anyone has told her in her entire life.

She does return, again, and again, and plays their ridiculous games.

Because Ty Lee is well aware that if she has the endurance to continue, they will eventually have to bend for her. She isn't as clueless as Mai and Azula think she is. No matter the game, no matter the stakes, Ty Lee will do as she is told, until they have to be nice to her.

However, Azula responds to that by raising the stakes even further.

Mai considers it to be a relatively depressing contest, but the results are pretty funny, and so she plays along.

.

7. The Floor is Literally Lava

The day Azula at last allows Ty Lee to be officially friends with she and Mai, is the day the stakes raise to the point of Ty Lee possibly burning alive. She has climbed up roofs, faced down spider-wasps, constantly had to play tag at a great disadvantage, was quizzed on trivia that Azula would shift to make more difficult depending on Ty Lee's weakness...

But the floor is lava, a game Ty Lee has played a thousand times, wound up being the game that ended the competition.

"The floor is literally lava," is the explanation Azula gives as they vote on a game to play.

However, Azula's vote counts for five, because she is... five times of a person with her current Fire Nation rank? Or something. Ty Lee has no clue, save for the fact that voting with Azula is kind of like two tiger-wolves voting with a single koala-sheep of what they will have for dinner. Especially since Ty Lee and Mai never have voted against her.

"That sounds dangerous. I think you're misusing the word literally because, I mean, where are..." Mai comments as Ty Lee grimaces. "Where are you even going to get... oh, oh Agni, you're going to set the carpet on fire, aren't you...?"

Mai has no idea why it took her so long to figure that out. Neither does Ty Lee.

"The stakes are too low in the floor is lava." Azula shrugs and Mai stares for a moment.

"I am walking away now. You two can set each other on fire if you want." Mai turns and Azula hesitates, looking at Ty Lee for a moment.

"Would you jump across minimal furniture under the threat of falling to a fiery death solely for my entertainment?"

Ty Lee hesitates, and then shrugs. "I guess."

Azula nods. "We'll play something else, I suppose," she calls after Mai. And then she turns to Ty Lee. "You can be tentative friends with us."

Well, Ty Lee has no response to that.