AN: This is a pretty brief prequel to Of Catching Lightning. It follows them meeting again and then goes to the night before they decide to get engaged. I have an unusual backstory I made up for them, and I decided to fully write it out instead of it just being referenced in drabbles.
Also, I love the Ty Lee floating between crazy jobs thing, but I never see her written as getting a very professional job at all.
It will not be sad or dark, but it is heavier on the sex and implied violence than my usual work, which is why it's rated M.
+Chapter One: Not Picked From a Hat+
Ty Lee has heard all the jokes in the world about her calling. About her flightiness, and about her being a meddler in many things but a master of none. A master of none except for one very fortunate skill set that she picked up from intense training.
Chi is important. Blood, bending, the heart and pain. She knew how to block it, and she used that in most of her work as the Kyoshi Warriors became more seasonal to her. The island was getting lonely and Ty Lee missed cities, and so she decided to just be on call.
Healing people, Ty Lee never put much thought into. She did sometimes wonder why she kept hurting, even after the war. And she also was sparked by the two coinciding events of her friend from work getting a bad leg injury, and the quite knowledge that Zuko had collected Azula and she was somewhere, Zuko hoping for her recovery.
Ty Lee learned how to do physical therapy, and stumbled into that. She then realized that her empathy and emotional intelligence were quite high, as is true with her aura reading and the fact that her childhood forced her to understand those things. People liked talking to her. Which made her contemplate therapy, which made her go to school for medicine.
Her parents always told her that she needed to take the first chance she got, and going on past primary school was foolish for a girl who had looks, and brawns but not brains. The military was more lucrative, but Ty Lee knew a lot of kids who decided to study politics, law, medicine and mainly engineering. These were also necessary for a world at war, and feasible for a country that had time to develop wildly in a century.
Today, is the day Ty Lee at last leaves school.
"It wasn't as unbearable as I remembered!" Ty Lee squeals as she hugs Mai, the only person who showed up to the graduation.
"That's nice for you," Mai says quietly, awkwardly patting Ty Lee on the back. "So, do you have a fancy hospital job lined up? Physical therapy, you wanted to do?"
Ty Lee licks her lips. "I sent a letter to an old friend and asked him for… some beneficial-to-society nepotism."
"Well, I will tell you if I ever fall and get hurt or am sick or something."
And Ty Lee again squirms at the fact that she focused on nontraditional healing and psychology. They were not savory, Ty Lee was pretty mocked for it, but it was what interested her. Life is too short to pursue things you don't want to really be doing.
"Good. And you can of course give me loans to set up a private practice," Ty Lee says, beaming and Mai just shrugs.
After Ty Lee and Mai have dinner, Ty Lee goes to see said old friend. She feels guilty that she has been living in Caldera for a while, for an education in something that only the Fire Nation bothers to offer, and she really hasn't said much to the Fire Lord.
Ty Lee hugs him, and he is much more responsive than Mai.
"I'm happy to see you," Ty Lee says, holding him at arms' length. "You look super old! Oh, I'm sorry…"
Zuko just chuckles. "I know. I look awful. And yes I did of course lend you my nepotism. Giving a healer a job is definitely not the worst thing I could be using my power for. It's not without a catch, of course."
Ty Lee laughs and Zuko laughs more hesitantly. Ty Lee briefly thinks it might not be a joke, but she quickly compensates for her only being here to ask a favor by offering to play Pai Sho and get a little tipsy.
Ty Lee walks into the asylum and it looks far different than she expected. She does not like her history in this kind of place, and she imagined if she worked in a hospital, it would be for healing and her chi knowledge. The concept of psychology was just interesting to her, and she did hope it could help her heal people fully when they were wounded.
But it does not look that off-putting. It was a summer retreat for a wealthy family once, now repurposed, and it looks the part. The furniture is clean and beautiful, the portraits intact and lovely. Everything is quite cautious, and people are sitting casually around.
Patients are sitting casually around. Ty Lee is starting to get very concerned about why Zuko sent her here. Very concerned. But Azula would not be somewhere this low in security. She's too dangerous, and Ty Lee assumed when she heard Zuko wanted her to take this job, he was testing her.
He was testing to see if she would be able to work with Azula. Because surely Zuko is not enough of a fool to send Ty Lee right into Azula's talons with zero work experience outside of massage parlors.
There are thoughts that have not crossed Ty Lee's mind in a very long time now surging up.
They are made much, much worse when the head doctor looks Ty Lee up and down.
"You weren't picked out of a hat, you know?" she says as she gestures for Ty Lee to walk with her. "I think you might be a very interesting new approach, and he's been very desperate. I do warn you that you should be careful while talking to her. I think she's actually caused more damage with her words than the people she's burned or hacked up."
"She-she's what up?" This is it. This is Zuko making a move that Ty Lee would never have predicted. This was supposed to be a test, and Ty Lee has never even asked about Azula in years. Why would he think either of them still have feelings for each other?
"Some cuts. Uh, nothing to worry too much about. Just try to stick to the suggested topics."
"I have never had a job before. I am not prepared. I am too pretty to be hacked up!" Ty Lee quickly realizes her outburst and then swallows. "You can't honestly expect someone who barely passed school to jump into this!"
The head doctor frowns. "If you aren't up for it, there are plenty of people eager to prove even with the chance of getting hacked up…"
She's burned. She's hacked up. Her words have caused more damage than violence.
Ty Lee does sigh. And then she decides to be honest. "Fire Lord Zuko didn't tell me that this was the job. I would've said no."
"I thought you were aware. It can't have been surprising that you fit the profile of our need so much."
"She has no sentimental side."
"Certainly not. But she once was sleeping with you, was she not?"
"Are you kidding? No, a few trysts and halfhearted dates does not make me her past mistress. We were fourteen. This is…" Ty Lee rubs her temples. "This is why Zuko is not good with women."
"It's worth a try," the head doctors says and Ty Lee tries not to roll her eyes.
Ty Lee wasn't picked out of a hat. She was chosen because they thought that perhaps Azula would still want to fuck her. How respectful of her intelligence…
She does clench her jaw. "I guess I'll face the music-uh, I mean, start my work?"
They walk down halls that are distinctly different from the lovely guest rooms. Everything was quite free, and Ty Lee imagines it is the type of place where criminals with rich parents are sent to be rehabilitated. The idea of someone dangerous being here is Zuko being compassionate and guilt ridden.
These halls are still furnished exquisitely, but there is a coldness. There are several layers of locks. Eyes fixated on the people walking in.
"So, how are you keeping her in place?" Ty Lee asks slowly.
"We figured out to do it as naturally as possible. To retain her pride and dignity. It didn't make the progress we hoped, but she hasn't attempted escape since."
"Will I go in or will she come out?"
"She's very well restrained when out of her cell."
"I doubt that."
"Restrained… enough. She once got quite sick and had her restraints removed─"
"And promptly probably attacked. You were right; I wasn't picked out of a hat. What does Zuko want from this?" Ty Lee crosses her arm and wishes that the anxiety inside of her was just anger and mild fear, and not excitement. She wishes that she did not want to see Azula after all of these years.
"She is immovable and detached, and disturbingly dangerous. But I believe you are up to the task." The last sentence is a lie, but Ty Lee does not protest.
They pass other rooms that must be high security, and then go through doors that would be much more at place in a stronghold than a retired summer home. More locks, at last, the door to a master bedroom.
It looks foreboding, but Ty Lee shows no emotion.
Ty Lee is chewing at her lip when she at last walks in. It is such a beautiful room, with a beautiful view. It is distinctly less terrifying than where Ty Lee last saw her. Then Ty Lee turns to her left, looking for the cell part. She finds it. The room is halfway closed off, with everything important behind bars reinforced with glass. Ty Lee's eyes, however, do not immediately find Azula, and that sends a surge of panic through her.
It feels like one of those puzzles where you have to find the tiny little red dressed woman in a sea of distractions that make her blend.
But the words stick in Ty Lee's throat.
"How lovely to see you," at last says a voice that had only just stopped haunting Ty Lee. "I didn't expect him to go to these lengths…"
"Where are you?" Ty Lee snaps, completely forgetting any protocol and glancing around.
"I'm not on the ceiling. Did you actually think I was on the ceiling?" Azula says quietly as Ty Lee is examining it. Azula emerges from the corner, where she was sunken into a chair. "You look like you have a profession other than prostitute in those clothes."
Ty Lee steels herself. She looks at the iota and Azula sighs.
"I happen to have gone to school for medicine," Ty Lee says as she folds it up and shoves it into her pocket. It is a fairly useless set of questions, and Ty Lee does know better.
"How did you ever pass?" Azula asks, and now Ty Lee can see her better.
She looks well, as well as she could be, at least. Her hair is pinned up, but much looser than before, a long, wispy and fluid locks fall from the bun and rest on her shoulder and back. She is well dressed, albeit clearly gaunt. It might be improvement, or it might be a bad thing, and Ty Lee has no idea what to make of this situation.
"Because you know how smart I am. You always did," Ty Lee says honestly and Azula just shrugs, her eyes flickering around the room for a moment. They still refuse to meet Ty Lee's.
"So, you're going off script?"
"I'm personally curious," Ty Lee says and Azula looks at her expectantly. It is new. "What got you in here?"
"I got me in here. And perhaps I deserve to be."
Azula starts to slink back into the shadows, but Ty Lee refuses to budge.