A/N: To be honest, this is inspired by my tragically out of hand crush on the fictional character Effy Stonem. Thank you for clicking and I hope you enjoy the show.
The Deception of Perfection
"Nobody breaks my heart."
-Skins-
In the immediate wake of a complicated bonfire with her three best friends, Ty Lee gazes at the embers until her eyes burn.
After blinking several times, she looks up and sees the princess, her princess. Azula looks disheveled, her hair windswept, her eyes focused on the dying fire. She looks real.
"Hey, Azula," chirps Ty Lee, and the princess lifts her head. Her makeup smudged at some point during this wild night. "I love you."
And Azula just smiles, the right corner of her lip curled. That signature smirk Ty Lee loves and hates, the one that silently says, 'You don't know me and you never will.'
When Ty Lee claims to know Zuko, she is right.
She could not say the same about Azula.
"Do you pity me?" the princess demands, looking moderately displeased. It makes Ty Lee's stomach do backflips.
"Of course not," hastily states Ty Lee, gazing straight at the beauty across from her. "You're, like, perfect. You can't pity a perfect person."
"Stranger things have happened." Azula shrugs one shoulder.
Ty Lee warmly and smoothly replies, "They probably have, princess."
"I said they did, did I not?"
"You did. So that means they have."
The conversation ends there.
[X]
Still dressed and still sandy, Ty Lee sits at the foot of the bed, and Mai lies down near her. They became distracted somewhere between preparing to go to sleep for the night.
"You're preoccupied," says Mai, wishing she were not as intrigued as she is.
Ty Lee sighs dreamily and remarks, "I want to get to know Azula. I want to really know her, not like I do now. I don't know if I know her, especially after tonight at the fire. I want to know her."
Mai turns over, resting her head against the plush pillow. "You better get in line."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ty Lee inquires, furrowing her brow.
Simply, Mai explains, "That no one knows her, and everyone wants to. I mean, I don't. I don't really care. I know her enough to be reasonably afraid of what's hiding under that terrifying psychopath façade. It's stupid to try to get close to that girl."
"I'm stupid. I get that a lot." Ty Lee frowns at the shadowy ceiling.
"You're as stupid as you pretend to be." Mai shrugs, expressionless. "That's it."
Ty Lee pouts and retorts, "Maybe being stupid makes me feel safe."
"Less accountable for your actions?" suggests Mai, something she long suspected.
Ty Lee contemplates the issue for a moment before assuredly answering, "Less likely to get burned at the stake… or heartbroken or something. I don't really know which one of those is worse."
Dryly, Mai replies, "Definitely being burned at the stake."
"Definitely being heartbroken," quietly replies Ty Lee.
Someone interrupts before Mai can mock that silly statement.
"That," coolly says someone from the doorway, "terrifying psychopath façade?"
Azula steps inside, a smirk on her lips, an eyebrow cocked, and Ty Lee thinks she might be the most beautiful person to ever step through a doorway.
"I—I didn't mean to offend you or anything."
Azula confidently strides forward and smoothly pounces onto the bed, perched on her knees. "No. I put effort into it. I am pleased someone noticed. Impeccable, isn't it?"
"Very," gushes Ty Lee.
Princess Azula forces herself to ignore the way her heart trembles.
[X]
The three best friends finish readying themselves for bed and lie in the dark, the girls pressed too close together, Mai thankfully—yet to her dismay—in between Azula and Ty Lee.
"Azula," begs Ty Lee, "will you tell us a story?"
"Why? Are we five?"
"You're just so good at that kind of thing," says Ty Lee.
"Can it be scary?"
"Oh, uh, uhm, it's your choice, of course, princess," Ty Lee says.
"It won't be scary," Azula decides and Ty Lee's heart burns crimson in her chest. "Okay, there once was a princess who wanted to be an empress. She sold her soul and her heart to a dark spirit in exchange for an unstoppable army. She sailed to the Citadel and, there, a thousand soldiers drew swords and conjured flames for a fight they would not win. She spun herself a crown of gold and thrones of bones and she walked to the emperor's palace of obsidian. She walked inside and screamed: make me queen or I'll make you bleed.
"He moved to kiss her and accept a proposal he misheard. She didn't need her army born from the spirits to knock down the last barrier in her way. She just stabbed him through the chest and took her seat."
Silence.
Ty Lee turns to Mai. Mai sighs and turns to Azula.
"Is that it?"
"It's the good part. I never cared for the rest of that story. What? Do you want to know what happened next?"
"Yes," softly says Ty Lee.
"Countless people challenged the new immortal Empress. She and her army stopped every single attempt to dethrone her. Her enemies studied her but couldn't devise a downfall. Then she met some girl or whatever. I don't remember the romance part very well; it's not important. Maybe I don't even remember the right words after all of these years. I just know that it ends with the object of the Empress's affections turning out to be the dark spirit in disguise, come to collect her immortality. She was killed by making a similar mistake that her predecessor made."
Mai dryly comments, "So the moral is, assume everyone is trying to kill you at all times."
Azula laughs. It is the most beautiful sound Ty Lee can imagine, and it makes her giggle.
"Something like that, I suppose."
The princess closes her eyes and does not say another word.
[X]
Hearing Azula laughing these days has been a rarity. Ty Lee smiles brightly, savoring the moment and the lovely sound.
They have two and a half days left on Ember Island, and they somberly march towards the end of war. Maybe Azula seems off because she was born to be a soldier and there may not be a use for her when the smoke clears. Or maybe Ty Lee is just noticing her more than she did before she realized how head over heels in love with this girl she is.
Ty Lee tries to pretend otherwise and builds a sandcastle while Azula and Mai sit on the porch.
"What is with her? I am sick of it. She's been weird since that party. Do you think she has a boyfriend? Do you think she's pregnant?" Azula says frantically, trying to sound calm and failing miserably.
Mai forces herself not to laugh.
"She's in love with you," says Mai and Azula narrows her eyes. "She is. She told me."
"Oh." Azula hesitates. "That is unfortunate for her. I suppose I will be forced to break her heart. I ought to find the most effective way to do it without making her hate me."
"That's an interesting response," says Mai. "I'm glad you feel the need to make an elaborate plan to destroy a relationship I think would make you happy."
"I destroy what I choose to destroy," snarls Azula, and Mai very slightly recoils. "I was built to destroy, after all."
Mai takes a few moments to contemplate the consequences of honesty. She decides to risk speaking freely.
"You're clever," she dryly states. "Too clever for your own good. That's why you destroy everything you touch, not because you were built for it."
Azula scowls and fiercely retorts, "You say that as if it should bother me. I don't care what I destroy to get what I want."
"I think you do," Mai calmly replies, briefly meeting Azula's gaze before averting her eyes.
Azula snarls, "I think you should watch what you say to the heir to the Fire Nation."
"Doesn't that title belong to Zuko?" inquires Mai.
Coldly, Azula answers, "Like I said, I don't care what I destroy to get what I want."
Princess Azula rises and walks away.
[X]
Ty Lee cannot tell if Azula is too sensitive or too cold-hearted. Maybe she lands somewhere in between, or maybe Ty Lee just wants her to be that way. Ty Lee never has been sure if she sees Azula realistically or not.
However, love does not need to be realistic, in Ty Lee's opinion. It relies mostly on hope and loving someone regardless of any and all flaws. Not that Azula has flaws, Ty Lee reminds herself. The princess is perfect.
"Okay," says Azula, shifting into her turn at the game they play. "If you could go back in time, what would you do?"
"I think about that a lot. Y'know, sometimes I wish I could go back in time. Not to change anything, though. Just to live through a few happy moments twice."
Silence.
She expects ridicule from a smug Princess Azula, who would, of course, have a brilliant plan of altering history. But instead, Azula eyes her like she is a sea slug.
"Don't get attached to moments," says Azula at last. "They pass."
"You're right, princess," says Ty Lee, although she doubts she will follow that advice. She loves her memories. She hates some, yes, but the ones that make her smile years later are worth all of the sad ones in between.
"What are those moments you want to live again, anyway? I can't think of anything worth the trouble," Azula says.
"A lot of ones with you." Ty Lee smiles to herself.
Azula stares at her. "Mai was right. She was right about that party. I didn't believe her."
"About—about…?" Ty Lee furrows her brow.
Azula looks mortified when she manages to explain, "You—you want me."
Cheeks flushed, Ty Lee stammers out, "I… I guess I'd maybe like to be more than friends in a perfect world but—"
"This is why they say you're stupid. This is why they're right."
Defeated, softly, a broken whisper, Ty Lee pleads, "What, princess?"
"See. You are a moron. It's obvious; you shouldn't fall in love with me."
Ty Lee's lashes flutter as she blurts out in earnest, "But you're perfect. You're perfect and I can't help loving you. Am I not good enough for you? I mean, I know I'm not good enough for you, of course, and stuff, but am I a bad match because I'd really, really, really understand if you don't—"
"I mean it for your sake, not mine. I can be a caring friend from time to time," snaps Azula. "See, the thing is, I will inevitably break your heart."
Ty Lee whispers, eyes averted, head-bowed, fingers trembling. "And if I break yours, you'd probably kill me or lock me in the Boiling Rock or something."
"You don't have to worry about that." Pause. Ty Lee looks up. Azula coldly and softly proclaims, "No one breaks my heart."
Ty Lee believes her.
[X]
Ty Lee decides to make a riskier move the next day. They go to another beach, one with amazing black sand that Ty Lee thinks is one of the prettiest most incredible things in the world, and Ty Lee ignores every other person but the princess.
She tries to hold hands with Azula, but her princess slips her fingers away.
Okay, perhaps Ty Lee went too fast. She tones it back and just walks by Azula's side.
They sit down and Ty Lee watches Mai and Zuko a bit enviously. Azula seems focused on the flame that dances on her palm, contorting into shapes like no one else in the world can do.
Ty Lee dips her hands into the black sand and sifts the grains through her soft fingertips like a waterfall in an hourglass. When she looks up, she sees Azula's flame extinguished.
"Isn't this sand so pretty?" Ty Lee chirps, picking up another handful.
Azula does not say anything.
She talks less and less these days.
Ty Lee worries about her with every breath she takes.
[X]
Later that afternoon, in town, a street artist whistles as Azula and Ty Lee walks by. The princess pivots to burn his hands or lips in punishment, but then Ty Lee wraps herself around Azula's arm and grins. It makes her hesitate long enough for the artist to make his case.
He presses his hands together and pleads pitifully, "I'd love to draw these two lovely ladies. Just one silver piece!"
Azula turns to Ty Lee. "We should."
Ty Lee bounces as she walks beside Azula. She could not be more excited.
The street artist uses a trained hand to make a beautiful rendition of the two girls. They exist in a heart and Azula furrows her brow.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why the heart?" demands Azula, eyes flashing.
"Oh, uh, I assumed you two were together. I can do another one for a discount."
Azula pauses and studies the picture.
"No, no. I like it," she says, and a genuine smile flashes on her lips for only a heartbeat. Ty Lee could not be happier that she does not miss it.
And Ty Lee thinks about kissing her but stops herself at the last second.
That would be suicide.
[X]
"Fine," says Azula, sitting across from Ty Lee. She forces their eyes to meet. "Tell me why you want me. I want a good reason, and if you have none, this nonsense ends cleanly and permanently."
"I feel better for being near you," whispers Ty Lee. She does not even need to think about her answer; she knows it deep in her heart. "I really do."
Azula sneers. "That is not love. That is my remarkable charm."
"I—I really love you. I know it's love, princess."
"Listen, I find it very hard to believe that anyone would ever fall in love with me. You idolize a goddess; you do not love me. You don't even know me, no matter how much you think you do."
"When we were little, we played cartwheels and—"
"Ty Lee, you didn't even know me then. And you never will."
It feels strange to Ty Lee to hear it aloud, especially from Azula's own lips. That always remained unspoken but crystal clear until this moment.
"I'm sorry for… I'm sorry, princess," Ty Lee whispers, deciding she must give up. She has no choice. "I'm sorry."
"I forgive you," coldly states the princess. "Now leave me be."
Azula looks away.
Ty Lee walks away.
[X]
On the last day of the somewhat magical but mostly tragic Ember Island vacation, Ty Lee paints her nails black for the first time in her life.
She borrows the expensive polish from Mai, and she does not quite know why she does it. Maybe something about the sweeping melancholy in her soul.
And she stands on a ferry now, gripping the railing tightly. She sees the black and hates it, makes a note to change it once she arrives at home.
Someone approaches her and she begins to panic. No one makes her feel that way.
No one breaks my heart, Azula had said.
The princess stands beside Ty Lee. "Your nails aren't as tacky as they usually are."
"Oh." Ty Lee beams and makes a note to never change her nails again.
"So, you have been avoiding me since our conversation. I want you to speak freely and I want you to tell me your thoughts without fear. I can't… can't afford to have someone consumed by… by whatever is in your head."
Ty Lee blushes. Azula squeezes the railing beside Ty Lee to hide her shaking fingers.
The acrobat stammers, "I don't—I don't—I don't—"
"Just spit it out," orders Azula, lifting her hands and spinning around.
Ty Lee reaches out for her arm and gently takes it. Azula turns to face her again. "I don't want to be your friend; I want to kiss you in the rain and, and y'know, stuff."
"Kiss me in the rain, and, and y'know, stuff?" is the only way Azula knows how to reply.
"Yeah." Ty Lee averts her eyes.
"Oh." Azula stands there.
They stare, stare, stare at each other.
Ty Lee leaps forward in the one bravest motion she ever makes and presses her lips against those of the princess.
After long enough, their lips at last part and Ty Lee's soul wants to burst open, bloom, blossom, thrive on love.
"That was interesting," says Azula, a little stilted. A lot stilted.
"H-hey, princess," says Ty Lee, sweating profusely and feeling as if she is a foolish little child. She has always been so smooth and confident, but something about the girl in front of her makes her feel like a pitiful puddle on the floor. "Will you be my girlfriend?"
Azula stares at her blankly for a few suffocating moments. Ty Lee desperately stops herself from bolting in the other direction.
"Yes," coldly says Azula before averting her eyes and changing the subject.
In her mind, Ty Lee dances and bounces and shrieks joyfully.
Outwardly, she just smiles.
[X]
In the Fire Nation, they fall for each other. Hard.
But they never say it. Nothing seems to change, except perhaps the way they look at each other, perhaps the way they speak when no one else is looking.
"You're my favorite," comments Ty Lee, the sun beating hard against her skin as she sits beneath blue skies.
"Favorite what?" Azula quizzically asks.
"Favorite everything. Favorite eyes. Favorite friend. Favorite kiss. Favorite name. Favorite person. Favorite way to spend a day."
"I think you might be my favorite too," crosses Azula's mind.
She does not think she is confident in it enough to say those words, though. Azula does not know if she believes that first thought that crashes into her head.
"You make it clear," Azula says primly, hoping that is the right thing to say.
Ty Lee certainly does not act as if it is not.
"Uh, so, after the war and stuff," says Ty Lee, now looking as nervous as Azula feels at every moment she attempts a romance, "do you think we could really date? For real. Really date."
Azula rubs her lips together. "I wouldn't speculate about something so volatile. It cannot end well, can it?"
"I guess I think if I believe it'll work out, it will." Ty Lee smiles and Azula envies her with a force stronger than any she has before felt. It must be nice to be a little butterfly.
And so, gold eyes metaphorically green, Azula bitterly replies, "And summer lasts forever if we just believe hard enough, right?"
Ty Lee's heart crashes, scorched by sunlight, the crimson beat turned ice blue.
[X]
Time passes.
A relationship does not progress but it perpetuates, and no one could ask for more during times like these. Azula seems to love the idea of carrying the world on her shoulders.
That is not more apparent than today, the day before this futile invasion.
"You're gonna make yourself dizzy, princess," points out Ty Lee after watching Azula pace back and forth in her bedroom for at least ten minutes.
"I am going over my invasion plans." Azula sits down beside Ty Lee and then lies on her back. Ty Lee joins her, staring up at nothing but dancing shadows. "They are important."
"Yeah. I know you're gonna pull this off and do lots of amazing things and you're gonna obviously get the crown for it and you've got nothing to be scared of or anything."
"I am aware."
"Mhm." Ty Lee smiles softly and says in earnest, "Nothing scares Princess Azula."
Silence.
Azula darkly whispers, "You know what scares me?"
"What?" Ty Lee anxiously whispers.
"That this, right now, lying here, is the closest I've ever been to being close."
"You've got, you've got your dad and Mai and stuff. And like a trillion admiring citizens who would die to be close to you."
"My father raised me better than that. He taught me that being close to anyone, even a blood relation or a dearest friend or romantic interest only serves as someone's downfall. I trust him."
"You've never wanted to be close, though, princess?" Ty Lee sounds polite and sweet and a little dumb, and she thinks that is why Azula does not burn something or storm off. The princess just lies there, hands clasped on her lower abdomen, slowly breathing in and out.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm walking through mist and people, people are just shadows in the fog," languidly says Azula, reaching her hand up and absentmindedly twisting her raven bang around her slender ivory finger. "Some of them are just benign. They just blur by and I don't need to care. But some of them are clearer. I see them always. Getting closer. They have claws and fangs and they're tearing at the edges of reality waiting to rip my throat out. Shadows. Shadows of people who are dead or gone." Azula cannot stop the solitary tear that dares to drip from her eye. She thinks the dim light hides it; she is wrong.
Ty Lee turns and gazes at her true love.
"I'd kill them all for you," Ty Lee eagerly states, sitting up so forcefully her eyes blur.
Azula shakes her head, almost entertained by this stunning idiocy. "You would, but you can't, and so your cute little words do not matter."
Ty Lee stands up, fists clenched, and she repeats vehemently, "I'd kill them all for you. I'd punch like that and like that and they'd totally leave you alone forever 'cause they'd—they'd be dead and stuff."
Azula does not reply, but her lips flicker with a small smile.
"You could try," Azula coldly offers, trying to be good at this girlfriend thing.
"I love you," says Ty Lee suddenly.
Azula is not confident in her answer enough to agree, to reciprocate.
And so, "I know," Azula replies.
Silence.
[X]
They kiss after Azula wins, wins, wins like she always needs to.
She needs to win because she does not know how to do anything else.
They kiss after the Invasion, before anyone takes inventory of the losses.
Maybe their lives will never fit together, but oh, do their souls know how to dance.
[X]
After the Boiling Rock, Azula demolishes her bedroom in a fit of rage. She still smells the place on herself and so she shatters a bottle of perfume and lets it drip from her like she took a plunge in the sea. She grabs the picture Ty Lee so haphazardly tacked onto her wall.
Princess Azula glares at it for the longest time.
At last, Azula lets the picture drop into the floor. It briefly flutters on the wind before it settles on the dirty stone, blending in to the strewn papers, clothes and broken glass.
Her tantrum stops. She sits down and cannot look away from that stupid drawing. She ought to cut off the hands of the man who drew it.
She breathes.
The painting is on the floor at her feet.
She closes her eyes.
The painting is on the floor at her feet.
She breathes.
The painting is on the floor at her feet.
She opens her eyes.
The painting is on the floor at her feet.
Azula takes one final look at it before she picks it up. She lights her fingertips dazzling blue and shoves the flame through Ty Lee's face. The picture burns around it until it falls onto her lap like confetti, smoldering, smelling of ash.
No one would ever see it again.
Good.
[X]
The shadows in the fog catch up to Princess Azula, snarling, frothing at the mouth, claws tearing at the edges of her reality, closing in on the princess.
And after that betrayal at the Boiling Rock, no one will fight them for her.
Fire Lord Ozai says coldly, "You looked troubled, little princess."
"I'm not, father," Azula says.
"Don't lie to me," he replies and she involuntarily flinches. She turns to face him.
With a straight face and sincere words, she lies, "I have no reason to be troubled."
"You were betrayed and humiliated," snaps Ozai.
Azula brushes her fingertips over her own lips, tracing where they were kissed before. She turns back to her father, head respectfully bowed, thoughts far away, and coldly offers the only thought rattling around in her decaying mind.
"I warned her not to love me. She should know she deserves whatever comes next."
Azula does not say the next thought that screams inside of her.
I was wrong, silently laments Princess Azula, someone could break my heart.
end