Hello! I'm the Reservist for the Ember Island Eel Hounds and for this round my prompts are: Write about a time when the persons are together. This is prior to them being separated. You can mention the upcoming separation if you want, but it's not necessary. (word) donut (location) Ba Sing Se (quote) "To be or not be, that is the question" – Shakespeare. I'm filling in for the Earthbender-Word Count: 1,801
After another round of passionate love-making on their apartment in Ba Sing Se Ty Lee was knocked out in exhaustion but Azula, just laying there hearing Ty Lee's slow breathing felt uneasy. She had the only person she had ever adored next to her and yet she felt uneasy.
She found it ridiculous to call fear what she felt at the thought of what she wanted to do to-with Ty Lee, but the anxiety and the little tremble that took hold of her pulse every time the thought assaulted her made it clear that it was something akin to fear at the very least.
Fear, to her who descended from the woman that had conquered the palace and the kingdom she had just made love in, was supposed to be as foreign as the lands beyond the Sunset Sea; yet for all her courage, wit and skill Azula truly feared marriage. Or was it that she feared that Ty Lee would say no?
Getting gay marriage legalized with full rights to both nobles and commoners alike by her father's council was supposed to be the hardest part and that felt like a swift stroke of her arm as she firebent, especially thanks to The Duke of Ember Island who supported her idea out of his own principles and believes instead of the want to gain something from the future Fire Lord like the others had done.
She truly was glad that a few nobles had already taken this new chance to step out and put the record straight (straight as could be) in their private lives after years of hiding behind paid mistresses and bastard children that were not theirs, because that meant that what followed was not going to be a first all together but rather a first of its kind.
When the news broadcasts announced it Ty Lee was ecstatic with how people were taking it: Few protests and mostly cheering, with the Fire Sages giving their blessing to all forms of love in accordance with the will of the Fire Lord, even if the Fire Lord had done it to avoid a scandal and because he wanted to gain political footing with the commoners so they would stop with their claims that the political system needed more meddling from them than what it already had with the Parliament.
When Fire Lord Azula I killed her brother in Agni Kai 300 years ago and brought forth the unification of the world by marrying the Water Tribe Chieftain the world's greatest concern was what would happen with the Avatar truly dead. With the Northern Earth Kingdom turned to ash the world knew there was no room for debating: Fire reigned supreme and those that had fought had been burnt and reduced to a pile of ash, the Avatar stupid enough to face a Fire Lord in the zenith of his youth and with the comet of his forefather behind him to multiply his powers a thousand fold becoming a lightning riddled corpse whose heart exploded inside his chest.
But now people had forgotten their places, or maybe the world had changed and the old ways were not adapting to this brave new world as Ty Lee remarked when they first met in that Republican rally 5 years ago.
Azula had gone there incognito with a dozen guards out of the curiosity that was as much a part of her as it was the Blood of the Dragon that flowed in her veins the same way it had in Sozin, Azula and her father Ozai V. She didn't blame the commoners on their imagery of her father as a cold-hearted, cruel man for he truly was cold-hearted in his treatment of all and he wasn't kind behind doors to his wife and only daughter, more focused on dealing with the issues that came from being a monarch that had full powers which had to be validated by a Parliament grandpa Azulon established to settle the Empire after the Secession War.
Azula and Ozai both admitted there was no better other choice in that matter as fighting the war had already bled both side too much gaining no one nothing but it was still an issue to have to "consult" their every decision with a bunch of peasantry decent that wouldn't be able to read hadn't her great-grandfather Iroh I created the Imperial College of the Fire Empire as a public institution for all to attend if they proved themselves worthy of it.
Ozai recalled his experience there as a sampling of a cesspool of political and philosophical idiocy and Azula saw her father's point when she met those empty-headed Equalists and their repeated babbling of that 150 year old book written by a man who knew nothing of what lied in the hearts of men or what each person had to do in a society; any society in Azula's opinion. But she unfortunately had Amon to thanks for meeting Ty Lee for weren't it for him and his ideas Iroh might've never even thought of creating the Imperial College and Ty Lee's mind would've gone to waste on being a pretty doll.
Ty Lee was a puzzle that the more Azula solved, the more she was trapped by. A fragile, coquettish look that encased a mind that was both kind and incredibly witty and agile. Going toe to toe with Azula's opinion on everything, even after knowing who she truly was, had earned Ty Lee a place in Azula's life that the Fire Heiress never thought anyone would fill: A life-partner, not a concubine or some arranged thing but an actual partner that would be a magnificent Fire Lady when Ozai kicked the bucket.
And that was where it got complicated. Not because homosexuality had to be moved from mental sickness to perfectly legal and normal conduct in less than a decade but because even after all these years Azula still needed to be told she was worthy of Ty Lee. Ozai had told Azula nothing would ever be given to her without a cost, but Ty gave so freely and loved her so much that Azula was honestly baffled that all she had to do to have her by her side was to just be herself, in all her opinionated and combatant nature.
Azula got up from her bed and wrote her goodbye note. They would be apart for a few weeks and they hated that. Azula found it silly and too sentimental but it still was true that she hated not having the only person at her side that truly knew her and could council her against her own nature in order to find the better ground in which to build her political life now that her father was getting old and she was of age to start having a voice in Imperial politics.
As she got ready to leave for a quick walk in which she intended to buy groceries for the week as well as a treat for Ty Lee to compensate for the fact she was going to wake up alone and Azula long gone, Azula reflected on her fear with her inner self, desperate to understand where this fear came from.
"To be, or not to be, that is the question" Azula's mind took the poetical path, as it always did when it came to Ty Lee "Whether it is nobler our mind to suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune that may come, or to take arms against the sea of troubles and by opposing end them: to let them die, to put those worrisome thoughts to sleep and suffer no more; and by sleep, that is to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
that Flesh is heir to"
"Would she even say yes?" Azula had to voice the thought out loud, for she knew Ty Lee hated the public attention and the paparazzi as much as she loved Azula, which the princess was assured was a lot "To lose most of her privacy and be bound by protocols and a life of plotting and political intrigues just because we love each other and it is my duty to the empire to rule it or else it shall fall into chaos? I'm afraid she'll say no because she knows that life will be her death"
"It is a thing devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep and in sleep, perhaps to dream; aye, there's the catch, for in the sleep that is death, what dreams may come ,when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity so long in life: Dreams destroyed becoming haunting nightmares that deprive us of sleep. But say there is no life with Ty Lee? What other riches can the world afford for us?"
"None" Azula admitted, as childish as it could sound, but Ty Lee was the only thing that kept Azula looking forward to rule: What a magnificent Fire Lady she'll be, all the things they'll accomplish. Azula ruling the nobles and Ty Lee ruling the commoners with her charming will so they can keep the Empire united as they bring more into the world before they leave it. The succession wouldn't be a problem thanks to advances in medical science that allow a baby to be made from two ovules, and what an heir they could have.
"Then there's the only path to us: be but sworn her love and no longer be a royal, but royals whose hearts beat for each other tenderly"
Azula was so deep in thought she didn't realized she had pass in front of the 24 hours Krispy Kreme until she smelled Ty Lee's favorite donut type in the air. Going into the store she could see from the windows that it was almost dawn, the first lights of the new day shinning over the walls Azula I destroyed when she captured the city, a few sections of them kept for touristic purposes and she couldn't help but think 'Just like her I've changed the world before being Fire Lord and I'll do so again when I am with her at my side. Once I come back with father's written down consent it'll be a thing of just bending the knee and pray to Agni she'll say yes'
Unbeknownst to Azula was the fact that Ty Lee had found the engagement ring hidden in the kitchen pantry looking for cookies 3 days earlier along with the speech Azula had planned to give to convince her to give up part of her privacy and after crying for a while in pure happiness decided that she would be with Azula no matter what she'd loose to do so.