AN: This is extremely meaningless and plotless, but I couldn't get rid of the pot-I mean plot-bunny.
Azula sleepwalks.
Why is that important? For a variety of reasons.
Like when she cut open her hand, and Ty Lee, of course, panicked and rushed her to a healer while trying not to faint. The princess couldn't figure out exactly how it happened ‒ Ty Lee figured it had something to do with the broken vase ‒ and so Zuko assumed it was self-inflicted. That ended as poorly as you would imagine.
Or when she got arrested after burning down half of the west wing of the palace before the smoke inhalation woke her. Zuko didn't press any charges; he tried to get her into therapy to find the cause of the disorder. That also ended as poorly as you would imagine.
But no, the crown jewel of Azula's sleepwalking mishaps takes place at the Jasmine Dragon in a cold Ba Sing Se winter.
"I hate my uncle," Azula says as she lies down on the far-from-luxurious sofa and rests her head on her girlfriend's lap. "I hate this city. I tried to get them to maintain my lifetime ban. I tried so hard…"
"I know you did," Ty Lee replies, gently rubbing Azula's arm. "We all did."
"Zuko didn't. My uncle didn't. They specifically lobbied to legalize the torture of innocent young women. Almost innocent young women," Azula says.
Ty Lee just wants to pet her like a wounded kitty. She has this agonized but spoiled look in her golden eyes, and Ty Lee has never been able to resist that. Ty Lee hopes her children look like that when they're sulking.
They are locked in the most perfect eye gaze Ty Lee has ever upheld when they are interrupted by Iroh turning out the candles.
"Uncle! People are trying to do whatever it is we are doing!" Azula snarls and Ty Lee swallows down the wrong tube and begins coughing up saliva.
"I am sorry," he says and he says something else but Azula doesn't care. Because he is not sorry and she knows it.
Ty Lee frowns. "He's just old and his life must be so lonely."
"He had a friend over today."
"His friend just came over to bring him a box of expensive peppermint tea. And his friend was a total weirdo, so, I mean, he just doesn't have any real relationships," Ty Lee says, now squeezing Azula's arm and trying to conceal her wheezing.
"I hope he chokes on that expensive peppermint tea and dies," Azula mumbles to herself.
Ty Lee gently sighs.
.
.
.
Azula wakes Ty Lee up in the middle of the night.
"Are you cut open? Did you sleepwalk? Did you sleepwalk and get caught by the Dai Li?" Ty Lee shouts and glances around the shadowy room. Azula's silhouette is staggering slightly.
"I'm just worried," Azula says and she crawls into the bed beside Ty Lee. "I was sleepwalking and I woke myself up. I'm not bleeding."
"Mhm. Okay."
"I've just possibly been assassinated."
"You're definitely not assassinated."
"No. I think I've been poisoned, Ty Lee."
Ty Lee sits up. "Did you sleep eat something?"
"No. That's absurd. I sleep drank poison intended for my uncle. Who is obviously more deserving of assassination than myself." Azula feels heavy. Really heavy and pretty certain that this is the end and she cannot even focus her thoughts on her last requests. "Have you ever had one day that just doesn't feel real?"
"Yeah. Usually cloudy ones," Ty Lee says, touching Azula's hand. It's quite clammy. Maybe she really has been poisoned.
"I feel like that pretty regularly, but I genuinely am uncertain if this is real or not. I've snapped. Have I snapped or have I been poisoned? Both?" Azula stares at the ceiling. Everything is… slow. Usually when she has a mental break it all seems too fast for her, and her heart rate is out of control. Now is the opposite. Is this what it feels like to be dying? She gasps in, gets up and walks to the bathroom as fast as she can.
"Azula…" Ty Lee murmurs.
"Zuko, where is Uncle?" Azula shrieks as she goes to find cold water. She hears her brother's footsteps and she makes it to the sink before her body feels like it is turning to stone. And it hits her like a rock from the Dai Li.
"Uncle went out because the neighbor's cat is having babies… or something."
"There are kittens?" Ty Lee asks before she hears Azula scream. "Never mind. My girlfriend has been poisoned by your uncle's assassin friend."
"Uncle would not assassinate Azula," Zuko begins and then he hears Ty Lee's laughter. She is giggling uncontrollably and Zuko very hesitantly walks to the bathroom, in which Azula looks about to burn Ty Lee half to death.
"She's not been poisoned," Ty Lee says with a smile on her face. "Your uncle is more fun than I even thought!"
"What's fun about killing me, you monster?" Azula rubs her eye, which is more red than white. Oh, Zuko doesn't want to explain this to his little sister. He already gave her the sex talk years ago; he isn't giving her the accidentally-gotten-high talk.
"Yes. You have been poisoned. Make yourself throw up," Zuko hisses.
"No," Azula snaps back. "I refuse to go back there! I would literally rather die than go back to the mountains to get better."
"It's not an eating disorder when you're throwing up intoxicants!" Zuko exclaims.
"I'm not doing it and you can't make me." Her eyes are pulsating. She leans onto the sink because gravity is infinite and this is what dying feels like. Ty Lee is still giggling, despite the pain it inflicts on her tummy.
Zuko's face is really, really red. Like flag of his country red. Like his sister's poor eyes. Like Ty Lee's nightgown that is falling off but none of them have noticed.
Azula currently is just concerned about the fact that she can no longer tell which way is up.
"What exactly did you take and how much?" Zuko asks since Ty Lee is not taking any responsibility for her girlfriend.
"I eat, drink and fight in my sleep. I drank our uncle's stupid fancy peppermint tea from his stupid sketchy friend and Ty Lee hold me now." Azula takes two steps and she feels like she is plummeting before grabbing onto Ty Lee and holding her. Ty Lee enjoys the warmth and manages to finally stop laughing. Azula never was fun enough to do this with her beautiful, lovely girlfriend. "Do you remember when I begged you to touch me so that I would know I was alive?"
"Yeah. That was scary." Ty Lee frowns, not wanting to think about Azula's past bouts of real madness.
"Do that," Azula says as her heartbeat quickens and oscillates from side to side within her.
"I'm already holding you." Ty Lee hesitates and pecks Azula on the lips. "You alive?"
"Yes. I suppose," Azula says. She feels weird. Like she's being split and half.
"You should go to a healer. That was a lot of tea," Zuko says quietly. He is the only responsible adult in this teashop. "Or we could go find uncle. How far can you carry her, Ty Lee?"
"Far," Ty Lee says, excited both about Iroh's face and the kittens. She helps Azula into her arms, and the princess kind of slips through time and she is in the cold street. There are people. People who are clearly and obviously whispering about the crazy princess and any of them could be the assassin who tried to kill her uncle and now is killing her.
Or was it not a mistake? Is Uncle not birthing kittens but meeting with his horrid White Lotus friends? Did he help lobby for her to come here in order to get her killed?
"Don't abandon me here," Azula whispers in Ty Lee's ear.
"I will never leave you," Ty Lee says softly, rubbing Azula's back. "If I could, I already would have like a zillion years ago."
Zuko pounds on the neighbors' door and waits. Azula slumps against Ty Lee and tries to think up a few choice words for Iroh, but they fly away from her butterfly-bees.
"Uncle, what do you have to say for yourself?" Zuko demands loudly.
"Kittens! Azula come play with the kittens with me!" Ty Lee yanks away the stumbling princess before Zuko can launch into his lecture.
"I love kittens. We should get one. No, we should get two. And the one who sucks the most at being a kitten we'll call Little Zuko, and the best kitten we'll call Little Azula," Azula says as Ty Lee helps her onto the floor in front of the mewling babies.
"I like that idea," Ty Lee says honestly, grinning.
Iroh looks on, at first sadly, but then with relief. She is playing with baby animals instead of throwing rocks at them, even if Zuko is so disappointed.
Ty Lee is giddy.
After ten minutes of Ty Lee holding kittens in the palm of her hand and discussing how small they are with her perfect girlfriend, Azula curls up on the very stunned neighbor's floor and falls asleep.
Ty Lee gently kisses her forehead as Zuko glares at Iroh.
And that is somehow the end.