Thunderbird 2 rolled to a gentle stop on the side of the road. The engine hissed and went silent again. Azula didn't say anything as she applied the parking brake and dug the map from under her seat.
"It's behind us," Ty Lee said nonchalantly.
"I know," Azula mumbled back, struggling with the map.
"We've been driving away from it for a while now."
"I know," Azula sighed. She leaned into the map, now stretched across the steering wheel.
Ty Lee turned away and quietly regarded their surroundings. The trees around them were tall and dense, and the higher branches waved gently. The air was fresh and cool. Most of the sky was grey with clouds but the Sun shone brightly through a broad gap. Azula sighed next to her and thrust the crumpled map into Ty Lee's lap.
"That map is useless." She expertly disengaged the brake and actuated the booster simultaneously and immediately started down the road again. Wind blasted over them as they picked up speed. Ty Lee examined the map.
"Azula, this isn't a road map. Where did you get this again?"
"From that vendor in Tacoma." She gripped then regripped the steering wheel. "He insisted it was accurate, the lying thief."
Ty Lee turned the map over and lifted her sunglasses. "This is just an attraction map. It doesn't show all of the roads."
Azula gestured in sudden frustration. "Well how many damn attractions are there in Cascadia? How hard can it be to get to Saint Helens?" Ty Lee shrugged.
"Okay, how long has it been since we turned off the Five?"
"I don't know. Twenty or thirty minutes." Ty Lee used her finger to measure the length of the highway on the map.
"Okay, well, that's probably about as long as it should have taken."
Azula sighed again and rested her head on her fist. "I guess. I don't know, Ty Lee."
Ty Lee cautiously reached over and placed her hand on Azula's thigh. Azula didn't say anything. Ty Lee watched her face carefully. To her satisfaction, Azula seemed to soften slightly. She watched another few seconds, then looked at the road.
"Azula."
"Hmm."
"The road. Azula, the road!"
"Oh, fuck," Azula groaned, hauling the vehicle back into the right lane. "It's not like anyone else here has a car."
"What if somebody had a horse? Or a bicycle?"
Azula held up a flat hand. "How many horses or bicycles have you seen today? Or in the last month?"
"You almost ran over that horse outside of Cleveland!"
"That..." Azula pointed into the air and shook her hand twice while thinking of what to say. "...Was more than a month ago."
Ty Lee grinned then laughed. Azula couldn't resist either.
"Wow, I guess Cleveland really was more than a month ago." Ty Lee realized she was still gripping Azula's thigh when Azula suddenly wormed her fingers through her own.
"Cleveland was almost two months ago." Azula let up a small smile. "I thought you were surely going to kill that street vendor."
"I told him three times I didn't like cabbage dumplings!" Ty Lee held up a hand. "It's not my fault he put the jam in my hair anyway. I think he wanted to fight me."
"You were lucky that Goose King guy came by when he did."
"I don't know if I'd say we were lucky. He did steal our shoes."
Azula shrugged. "Yeah, but he also showed me how to sauté mushrooms."
Ty Lee started laughing. "He cooked poisonous mushrooms! I don't even know what that guy's problem was. Were you there when he told me he was a Virginian spy? He said he'd snuck into Chicago inside of a cow!"
"You mentioned that, yeah." Azula laughed too. The car crested a hill and for a moment they saw the extent of the blanket of trees around them. There were more mountains visible in front of them, still capped with snow even in early summer.
"I think I'd like living here," Ty Lee said quietly, watching a dilapidated house pass the car.
"Oh, you mean to say you're not in favor of dry ground and cacti?"
"I'm in favor of mild summers and forests with actual trees in them."
"There are plenty of trees in Phoenix. I guess there's no pleasing some people." Azula looked to Ty Lee with an exasperated pout. Ty Lee rolled her eyes and hit Azula's arm.
"I want to live in that house over there." She pointed across Azula's side of the Thunderbird to a wrecked house on the other side of a weedy field from the highway. "We'll fix it up all pretty. Adopt the land and grow our own food. In the winters we'll drive back to Mohave."
Azula looked back and forth from the road and the house. "That's a hell of a drive just to enjoy the weather."
"Yep. We'll be literal fair-weather fans." Ty Lee tried and failed to conceal a grin. Azula chortled.
Ty Lee spent three minutes trying to brace the map against the wind and one minute trying to read it. It detailed some of the attractions present in Cascadia, including the major mountains, camp sites, and cities. Ty Lee found the whole thing confusing. Cascadians, having just gotten out of the war, were probably in no mood to vacation. She glanced guiltily at Azula.
"What do you think," Azula said suddenly.
"I think you're lost," retorted Ty Lee.
"I am not lost."
"Do you know where we are then?"
Azula didn't say anything.
"That's an answer too, you know," Ty Lee sang. She absently held her arm out the window, waving it through the airflow. It reminded her of the day she and Azula stole the Thunderbird 2 from Zuko. The drive to New Texas had been tense and awkward. Azula probably said two words the whole way.
Ty Lee reminded herself that was almost four years ago. They'd crisscrossed the continent numerous times since then, from Portland to what was left of New York City, as far north as Hudson Bay and as south as Puerto Vallarta.
In all that time she'd managed to get Azula to say a few more words.
"How long do you think until we go back to Seattle?" she asked Azula, who glanced at her with an eyebrow up.
"Ty, we left Seattle four hours ago."
"I know. I just liked it a lot is all," she mumbled with a shrug.
"You liked what happened there," Azula corrected her coquettishly.
"I liked the city! It's so beautiful. It's right there on the water and the sun isn't harsh and the people are so nice." She paused and looked down at the map. "I also liked making out with you in the rain."
Azula twisted in her seat."I enjoyed that too," she said, trying extremely hard to sound casual. She wasn't going a great job. Ty Lee giggled.
"Next time it rains... do you maybe want to pull over and..."
Azula coughed suddenly. "Yeah, yeah we could- that would be nice. I would like that." She flipped down her sun visor, adjusted her hat, and shifted in her seat, all totally casually.
Ty Lee leaned out the window, riding on the small high she got from making the princess flustered. It was better than any acorn wine the Goose King could brew in a vase.
They pressed on into an empty town. The two grew quiet and pensive at the sight of abandoned and overgrown buildings. Clouds started to block the sun, almost as if to set the mood.
"Do you think there's anything good in that one?" Ty Lee asked as they passed a large building to their left. All of the lettering had long since fallen off and vines were overtaking what was left.
"I highly doubt it."
Azula slowed down as they approached an intersection. Across the street, one of the signal poles had fallen and blocked the road. Ty Lee looked in opposite directions down the intersecting street.
"How wide is that pole? I think I can pass over it." She nudged the Thunderbird closer, increasing pressure from the booster to lift the car higher off the ground.
"No, Azula, turn here." Ty Lee pointed to the right, down the other road.
"What? Why?" The car stopped.
"To get back to the freeway. It might be faster that way."
"Might? How do you even know it'll get us to the freeway."
"Look- the sign says 502, it's a state highway. It's numbered with a five, so it must connect with the Five. It probably goes straight there." She turned to Azula, who was staring down the road.
She sighed. "You haven't led me wrong so far." The car lowered as Azula took pressure off the booster and they turned sharply down the street. "Did you know where we were this whole time?"
"No, I just got a hunch. We can get on the freeway going north and take it up to highway 504."
"504? What's there?"
Ty Lee turned. "Saint Helens. Don't you remember?"
"The highway to Saint Helens is 503. It's on the map." Ty Lee groaned and dropped her head into her hand. "What? That"s what it says!"
"Azula... what road were we just on?"
"I don't... I don't know, I wasn't paying attention." She glared at Ty Lee, who was bent over and laughing. "You were in charge of navigating!"
"No I wasn't..." Ty Lee straightened up and rubbed her face. "You missed the turn for the 504 and took the 503 instead. The 504 goes to Saint Helens, the 503 doesn't."
"No, look at the map. 503 to Saint Helens. Look." She gestured to the map without specifying where to look.
"That's just poor typography. This is probably a copy of a copy of a reproduction of a US-era tourism map. It's a four. Look!" She held the map towards Azula, who shoved it away.
"Okay, whatever. It's a four." She twisted awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. Ty Lee laughed and leaned out the window. They passed a single gas station, the first one Ty Lee had seen since Olympia several hours ago. A break in the cloud cover sent a weird glow over the darkened landscape. A bird crossed the sky.
Thunderbird 2 pulled through the town of Battle Ground. They passed directly over another fallen signal pole without flinching. A squirrel standing in the road dove out of their way just in time to get blasted by the air current they created and land in a bush. Ty Lee turned suddenly to Azula.
"So what are we doing after we go to Saint Helens?"
Azula cleared her throat. "I thought we could go south, through Oregon. See Crater Lake and maybe Klamath. That's on there right?
"Mm-hm. Then what?" Ty Lee studied that map to see that it did indeed show the location of Klamath Falls.
"Well... Keep going south into the NCR. Have you ever been to San Francisco?" She looked over at Ty Lee, whose eyebrows were up in concern. "...As a tourist I mean. Shut up; don't look at me like that." Ty Lee quickly looked down at the map. The southernmost point of Cascadia was still miles away from San Francisco. Azula sighed loudly.
"If that doesn't work for you, we could go east instead, back into Rocky. I hear Yellowstone is nice this time of year."
Ty Lee but her lip, then looked at Azula. "No, let's go to San Francisco. Maybe it would be nice to go as tourists. It's supposed to get pretty cold so now is a good time to go." Azula nodded to this.
"Okay. So San Francisco, and then..." She looked at Ty Lee. "You pick."
"Me?" Ty Lee sat back in thought. "I guess I don't know much about that area. What about... New Reno? Or Lake Tahoe?"
"New Reno?" Azula repeated, in mild apprehension.
"Yeah. Then maybe through the desert to Salt Lake City?"
"That's- that's in Mohave."
"Well, duh." Ty Lee shielded her eyes from a sudden ray of sun.
"Are you sure you want to go back into Mohave?"
"What, are you afraid Zuko's going to be able to tell the second you set foot on his country?"
"I wouldn't doubt it for a second. Have you ever seen how extensive Father's spy network was? I'm positive Zuko has a pair of binoculars and a walkie behind every cactus and tumbleweed."
"Come on Azula. Mohave isn't at war anymore, and there's no way Zuko's still mad at you. Plus, New Reno is like on the opposite end of Mohave from Phoenix. We'll pass right through."
Azula sighed again and leaned over the steering wheel. "I just... How can you be sure he's not still mad at me?"
For the sake of Azula's dignity Ty Lee tried not to laugh. "Because... Because all that stuff you did was like four years ago. He's the emperor now, he has bigger things to worry about."
"I sent an assassin after him and his friends! And I stole this car... It was the only other prototype he had."
"Yeah since he sank the first one in San Francisco Bay. And I'm sure he doesn't miss this thing. He can probably order thirty thousand on a whim if he wants to."
"What about what I did to Mai?" Azula turned in panic.
"Azula..." Ty Lee linked her hands together in front of her and took a deep breath. "Who hasn't shot their brother's girlfriend? God knows I've wanted to sometimes." She looked over at Azula, who seemed shocked at the assertion, and immediately dropped the smile from her face and cleared her throat. "Okay, that's not right. But I talked to Mai right before we left, remember?" Azula nodded. "She... understands what happened that day. She understood- at least then- why you thought that was the right thing to do. Azula, she told me she wasn't mad at you. And she said the doctors told her she was going to make a full recovery anyway. If she's not going to hold a grudge against you over it, then she's not going to let Zuko." She looked up at Azula, whose jaw was rather fiercely set. After a few seconds, no one had said anything. Ty Lee leaned away. Azula opened her mouth three times before managing to get a word out.
"So after San Francisco we'll go east to New Reno and Lake Tahoe, then to Salt Lake City." She looked down, then to Ty Lee. "Does that sound good?"
Ty Lee rolled her eyes. "Yeah... Yeah, Azula, that sounds good." She stuffed the map back under her seat "But we have to remember to pick up a better map sometime." Azula laughed a little bit.
Then, "Ty, look." Azula pointed ahead to some signs above the road.
"Interstate Five north. Hey, I was right!" She reached up to return Azula's high-five.
"I knew I shouldn't have doubted you," Azula said, hiding her enthusiasm as she slowed down through the intersection.
"No thanks to your crappy map!" She leaned towards Azula teasingly.
Azula started to lean in as well. "You'd better watch your mouth, or else you are going to be on navigation duty."
"Is that a promise Azula?"
"Nope. It's a threat." They came together for a kiss and almost immediately sat back in surprise.
"I felt it too," Ty Lee murmured, holding her hands flat and looking up at the darkening sky.
Azula stared upwards as well, and flinched when a droplet of water splattered on her face.
"It's starting to rain," she said quietly. She any Ty Lee looked at each other. Strong raindrops thumped the windshield and hood. Ty Lee reached over and actuated the parking brake, right there in the abandoned intersection, as Azula turned off the booster. Smiling boldly, Ty Lee slid across the seat to Azula.
"You know Princess, I was just thinking... Saint Helens can wait."