Title: Bonds

Author: overlithe

Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender

Summary: Sometimes Azula hates not minding that Ty Lee is not afraid of her anymore. Post-War. Azula/Ty Lee, mild fire-play, implied D/s.

Characters/Pairings: Azula/Ty Lee

Prompt: avatar_500 prompt 018. Cut; fanfic100 prompt 094. Independence

Word Count: 499

Rating: M

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and concepts created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and owned by Nickelodeon and various other corporations/people. I'm not making any money and do not intend any copyright or trademark infringement.

Bonds

Ty Lee flopped onto the bed. 'Why is your room so… bare?'

'I like my room,' Azula said in a fire-whip tone. She examined the fingernails on her left hand. They were shorter than Before. Sadly. 'Isn't there something you should be doing with the rest of the matched set? Perhaps some synchronised chanting?'

A rustle of cloth at her side. Azula didn't want to look, but something in Ty Lee's painted smile—it glistened like a bird's plumage, or a fresh wound—drew her gaze. Even lying down in that ridiculous get up, Ty Lee seemed to be doing some impossible acrobatic stunt. 'I had some free time. So I thought I'd pay you a visit.' She edged closer still, enough for Azula to feel the weight of her body, the powdery-sweet scent of her face paint.

'And what kind of fool does that make you?' Azula's gaze darted to the door—open, always; she—

couldn't stand

—did not trust places whose exits she couldn't see, then back to Ty Lee's colourless eyes, bare of even the faintest trace of hurt.

'I put you in prison,' Azula said, and told herself there was no effort at all in sounding uncaring. Ty Lee placed a hand on her chest, just below her heart.

'Yeah, but you didn't really mean it.' The hand crept over Azula's clothes, until the fingertips brushed the hollow of her throat. 'You weren't—' A frown, then the tone turned bubbly again. 'You're all better now.'

'Yes.' Azula turned onto her side and undid the ties in Ty Lee's armour and clothing, until she uncovered a taut belly, the swell of breasts. 'I'm all… better.' Ty Lee's hand remained on her throat, but her own ran over the other woman's flesh, lingered on her hip, teased a brown nipple until it hardened. Azula's bending was still all tangled vines, but heat poured from her palms; it made Ty Lee's heartbeat quicken.

'Now,' Azula finished in a sharp-edged whisper, and felt a sudden urge to run her tongue and teeth over the skin between Ty Lee's breasts, her white-painted face. She let more heat pour from her fingers, and was surprised when she didn't see bruises bloom.

She didn't regret it. She wasn't better. The thing inside her pulled on its leash, threatened to rip through her skin so it could bite, and rip, and rend. Wasn't that what the monster that lived in the dark was supposed to do?

'I'm not afraid of you,' Ty Lee said in a thread of voice, but her fingertips felt hard, and Azula knew she could leave her in a motionless heap if she wanted to, twitching in helpless rage like a downed moose-lion.

You should be, she wanted to say, but instead she edged closer to Ty Lee, hating her own silence, hating that some part of her did not care or mind.

Bonds tied you down.

Bonds were there to be cut.

Later…

++The End++