("It is...unbalanced."

"Of course it is. Even I don't know why I suffer traitors.")

When she wakes, one of the palace physicians—hers now—brings her morning dose, and she thinks of telling him his hair is on fire, even though it isn't. She decides against it, and is sorry. It would be more fun than being assaulted with annoying questions this early in the morning.

"Did you sleep well?" he asks.

"Well enough."

"Any nightmares?"

"No."

"Your pulse is slow. Are you tired?"

"I've just woken up."

"Hm. You feel warm."

"I'm drinking tea."

"I see. Tongue, please." It hasn't been a question for...a while. She could refuse, but she wants this over with. "Your qi seems sluggish today."

"Will you tell my brother?" She should hide the smirk, but doesn't. "I'm sure he would enjoy hearing about it, considering that he's off doing nothing with those friends of his."

"I'm sure the Firelord is very busy supervising the reconstruction of Ba Sing Se."

"Is that what they're calling it?" she asks, but doesn't laugh. He'll write something down if she laughs.

He changes the subject, the script. "Your Kyoshi warrior friend is coming today, remember."

"Really? I wasn't aware," she says, hoping the sarcasm obscures the truth. "And she's not my friend."

"What is she, then?"

"Dead chocolate," Azula says, then chokes off the urge to explain. The sheer Zuko-ness of words, their slowness, their weakness, is part of the problem. More will not help. And yet, her physician looks at her as if she doesn't know any of this.

("The Firelord entrusted me with your treatment, and I just think it would be better if your attractions were corr—more typical."

"Are you my physician, or are you my brother's mechanic?")

Mai sits next to her, not across, and Azula is torn between rolling her eyes and looking away. She raises an eyebrow instead. In answer, Mai dips her rice in her soup.

Mai has always dipped her rice in her soup. It is this, not the knives, that had sparked her interest so long ago. Someone so in command of her body, able to flick the excess moisture off of rice in one clean stroke without splattering it—someone so like herself—could be useful, an amusing challenge to control. The way Mai lies with her whole body is admirable (and the way poor Zuzu tries to mimic it is hilarious), but in the cocoon Azula can still find the butterfly-cicada, fluttering helplessly.

"I wonder," she says, examining her nails, "what it would be like to kill you."

Mai swallows, small, before she speaks: ever a Firelord's wife. "I wonder what it would be like if Zuko'd put you in prison like I told him to."Another flick; the muscle pulses in her wrist, like the small spasms of feeling that have always flashed across her face. It is utterly perfect. ("Like this," Mai had said in the gardens as the shuriken flew.)

But Azula knows the parry of Mai's blade when she feels it. "Speaking of which, I'm surprised you let little Zuzu go off with all those...women."

"I'm sure Toph and Katara can't keep their hands off him." Mai sips her tea—something fruity and sweet, she supposes. It's only Mai who has tea with her meals (ever the Firelord's wife); only Mai who uses that name. Whose eyes glaze over, whose mouth softens just a little when she says it.

"My doctor thinks my attraction to women is unhealthy." Azula makes sure to emphasize the last word. "I can't say I blame him, considering."

Mai takes a bite of rice. "Ty Lee is coming. I'll host a lesbian orgy." Firelord's wife, indeed.

"Good. You can invite your Water Tribe whore." Azula looks up then, just briefly, to catch the shadow in Mai's face.

It's a smile.

("Your thinking is unclear."

"I'm mad, not stupid."

"I'd hate to see you taken advantage of."

"By Ty Lee?")

Ty Lee bows low, hand over fist.

"Must you wear that ridiculous getup every time you come to see me?" Azula asks.

"I really don't have to...if you don't want me to."

Azula waves a hand. It's better that Ty Lee doesn't know what she wants, better that she knows traitors by the colors of their uniforms.

One of the servants who's not really a servant brings out a tray-spiced tea for Ty Lee, jasmine tea for her. She hates jasmine tea.

"Why don't you go out in the palanquin?" the not-a-servant asks.

Ty Lee sips her tea. "That would be fun."

"We'd prefer to be alone," Azula points out.

"But, Your Highness, you know it isn't good for you to be alone."

Were Ty Lee not here and because it is a good day, Azula would ask her if she knew what "paranoia" means. But she doesn't have to.

"Oh, she won't be alone." Ty Lee's voice is soft and round now; Azula tries to ignore how she speaks in short sentences and makes sure not to squeal, so as not to be reminded of her own weakness.

In the pause, the servant-who-is-not-a-servant's eyes make her...uncomfortable. "Leave us," Azula says.

"Of course, Your Highness." She doesn't bow on the way out.

"If there's no war anymore, Azula," Ty Lee asks in her room after tea (still softly), pulling the comb through her hair as if she's weaving on a loom, "is the War Room still the War Room?"

"Really, Ty Lee. Obviously—" She'd been ready to say "Zuzu's too stupid to change it," but then she wonders if perhaps he's too stupid not to. What ridiculous name would he give it? The Fun Room? The Friendship Room? The Room Where Nothing Gets Accomplished Because I Am the Worst Ruler in Fire Nation History? Maybe he calls it nothing at all because he's shut it up, leaving centuries of achievement cold and empty. And then she's thinking of—

The ungrateful, traitorous bastard. That is all.

"Obviously what, Azula?"

"Obviously, it's a ridiculous question." Azula doesn't like not knowing what Zuko would do, and she especially doesn't like the way Ty Lee's voice creeps forward, like (she must always remember the "like") a child crowding a baby ostrich-horse to see if she can ride it. She is tired of people examining her from all angles like a new species of beast: Is she crazy right now? How about now? I don't think that made sense—should I report it to the Firelord? It was amazing how fascinated the sane were with madness, yet how clueless about it they were: they were always hoping to find it, and congratulating themselves on spotting it when they hadn't. (Did they not stop to consider a question before answering it? Or pause to make the question-asker squirm?) It would amuse her if their need didn't force her to think about everything she did: where to look, where not to look, how to hold her head, how long to wait before speaking. Sometimes, like right now, she had to strangle her thoughts altogether. This sort of curiosity, this invasiveness, doesn't suit Ty Lee at all.

Ty Lee agrees. "Sorry, Azula." Then she goes silent as the comb keeps pulling, and Azula is glad she doesn't have to command her thoughts like wayward soldiers, line them up into sentences or beat them into words. Instead, she focuses on the rhythm of Ty Lee's combing and feels her thought-armies gather close. She wonders if she could follow Sozin's Subjugation of the Air Nation now, were someone to read it aloud.

"Subjugation," she says quietly, feeling the shape of the word in her mouth.

"What did you say, Azula?"

"I said nothing."

"Oh."

Azula doesn't think of how soft Ty Lee keeps her voice, how she snips her sentences like silk. Instead, she focuses on her eyes, kept low and out of the way, the way her jaw curves like a ripe peach. She tolerates the flashes of light in the mirror (silver knives in the sunlight) because Ty Lee is the same as she always was. Except that she isn't. She's not chattering away like the Avatar's lemur, and when she does talk, her voice doesn't scrape the inside of Azula's head. And sometimes there are small noises, changes of breath as she chokes off words, and Azula feels a little thrill. But Ty Lee's voice is always soft.

Azula is tired of softness. She grabs Ty Lee by the sleeve and decides (clearly) to take the spiced tea on her breath for herself.