"Have you brushed your hair today, Azula?" Ty Lee asks kindly as she walks into her house on Kyoshi Island and sees Azula waiting for her.
Ty Lee offered for her to make friends on Kyoshi Island, with genuine good intentions. The kids all wanted to play with her and see her fire, which amused Azula briefly, but now she has locked herself in this hovel, which is so beneath her stature. And to think Ty Lee begged Zuko to let her bring Azula to Kyoshi Island to try to get her out of the palace, yet Azula has decided to not leave her bed no matter where the bed is located.
"Fuck you," is Azula's light and confident response.
Ty Lee frowns for a moment, knitting her eyebrows together. "That means no, doesn't it?"
"I'm getting kind of tired of you asking me those questions," Azula snaps harshly and Ty Lee crosses her arms. And she continues in a high pitched, mocking voice, "Have you brushed your hair today, Azula? Didn't you wear those clothes yesterday, Azula? Have you eaten today, Azula?" She stops for a moment with a pout on her lips and a glare directed at Ty Lee. "I am a competent adult. I can remember to brush my hair and change my clothes and eat."
"But the answer to those questions is usually. No, yes, and no," Ty Lee replies in a sing song tone, not budging.
Azula grinds her teeth together and realizes she is going to have to be the one to budge this time. Her technique always works on Zuko, but Ty Lee is an enemy against which Azula falters. She wonders why she does not date some nice girl who never argues and respects her title of princess. But she and Ty Lee have been together for seven years now and their routines and romance have become familiar and impossible to break away from.
"Fine. No, I haven't brushed my hair today. I want to go home," Azula whines, Ty Lee wondering when she became Azula's mother as well as girlfriend.
But Ty Lee drops her green cloth bag to the floor. She rummages in it and waves a hairbrush around for Azula to see.
"Thankfully, I'm always prepared," Ty Lee says brightly, sitting down on Azula's bed. Her weight, while minimal, displaces Azula slightly. "Always carry a hairbrush, my mother said."
"Hm." Azula then pauses and squints at Ty Lee. "Well, why did Mai always have to untangle your braid if you're such an expert in hair care?"
Ty Lee shrugs. "I did carry a hairbrush everywhere, but, uh, I didn't ever learn how to brush my own hair."
Azula laughs, a small, wicked chuckle. Ty Lee blushes light pink and seizes Azula by the arm, yanking her up. Azula shrieks and murmurs some vile threat under her breath, but Ty Lee pleasantly ignores her and starts to comb through the knots in Azula's hair. Her fingers rest on Azula's neck for a moment, brushing across it as Azula fights back shivers.
This, that feeling of lightning resonating from Ty Lee's touch against bare skin, is why she tolerates such insubordination. There is no feeling like it, even bending. Whether it is love or lust, Azula does not care; she enjoys it.
"Do you have a tie for my hair?" Azula asks feebly.
"Nope," Ty Lee responds with a shrug, not seeing any problem with that.
"Then how are you so prepared? Carrying a hairbrush every day for two decades doesn't make you prepared," Azula remarks with a deliberate and overt roll of her golden eyes.
Ty Lee thinks for a moment with a humming sound. She tears through a knot and Azula breathes in through her teeth. The brushing then becomes more gentle, and Azula secretly enjoys the running of the teeth of the comb through her hair, touching her neck occasionally.
"I guess I'm not that prepared. But you used to be pretty grateful when I whipped out my hairbrush," Ty Lee responds cheerily and Azula sighs. She may be an adept liar and expert of living in denial, but she has no desire to argue with that true statement.
Azula has just washed wall sludge off of her body. She lies on her bed, her body sprawled in frustration. She still smells of it and it disgusts her. Today is possibly the worst day of her entire life, and all she wants is to go back to the Fire Nation, despite having to explain this to her father. A project four years in the works, and Azula could not execute it despite her magnificent battle. She blames the men in charge of the project.
"My hair is horrible. Why did we bring such high tech machinery but not a hairbrush or a change of clothes?" Azula snaps at Mai, who simply shrugs.
"I have to say that we weren't that prepared for the Avatar to beat us senseless," Mai sighs, as if it is not a devastating failure. She almost looks to find it funny and Azula's fingers twitch towards a pillow to throw at her, but she does not have the energy.
"I have a hairbrush!" shouts a voice from the bathroom. Ty Lee is still dripping slightly with the sludge, half dressed in a way that Azula tries to look away from but cannot. "I do! I'm the hero!"
Mai laughs to herself, wheezes slightly, and continues toying with a switchblade. Ty Lee grabs a hairbrush from her purse, the one that the soldiers said she should not bother bringing. And she clambers onto the bed and starts running it through Azula's hair without being asked.
It is one of many occasions in which Ty Lee has a hairbrush, right when Azula or Mai needs it. Yet, Azula has never once seen her brush her own hair.
"Can you do your own braid now?" Azula asks and Ty Lee makes the humming sound again. "No?"
"Kind of..." Ty Lee mutters. "I can give you a braid though!"
"You know what... okay," Azula says, agreeing to a braid for the first time in their entire nation.
"What happened to 'braids are for peasants' and 'I can't put my crown in a braid', princess?" Ty Lee whispers in her ear, Azula's shoulder nearly hitting Ty Lee in the lips from the small burst of arousal.
"I forgot my crown at home," Azula lies.
Ty Lee laughs.