A/N: Some Quick Facts About This Fic:
Chapters: 4
Ship(s): Azula x Ty Lee, with MaixOzai, ZukoxKatara, AzulonxIlah and mentioned UrsaxIroh.
Rated: T for mature humor, sexual themes and moderate language.
Notes: This is technically a sequel to Midwinter Madness but in the chronology of the Dynasty-verse takes place almost directly after Off to the Races. It is a Tyzula Advent entry and each chapter includes six prompts [in chronological order].
WAR OF THE ROSES
"A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all have to go through it together."
-Garrison Keillor-
Azula arrives at the Versailles of the Rockies with the soundtrack of The Shining playing in her head. Ty Lee hums a Christmas carol while Bunny remains silently plugged in to her iPad.
"This will be so fun," Ty Lee says as she steps out of the car. "I mean, last year it was just me and you and your dad and like pregnant Mai. She's so the worst. I mean, Valerie is cute, but has she like never heard of birth control?"
Azula slams the car door shut. "Has your mom not, Miss Six Siblings and Counting?"
Ty Lee squints, ignoring the insult. "Why did you emphasize 'your'?"
"Because Mai is my mother and don't talk about my mother and…" Azula lowers her voice and, aghast, whispers, "Birth control."
Ty Lee giggles.
Azula glowers.
[X]
Azulon looks at the small families that have branched out from him and Ilah. He does not ever know what to think of them; his feelings about the couples and their children are fleeting and fickle.
His eldest son and his wife are not present; they are in Bandon with Ursa's family. Azulon is displeased and they will suffer for it, but he let them do it. All he has is Zuko, Katara, Kya, Ozai, Mai, Valerie, Azula, Ty Lee, and Bunny. And Ilah, of course.
"Does anyone have news?" asks Azulon, cocking an eyebrow. He knows they will all be too afraid to say a thing. Or perhaps their lives are just more boring than the tabloids imply. "I saw a rumor that Zuko and his cute Eskimo got married."
Azula smirks. Ty Lee squeezes her hand.
"Well—" Katara begins.
"Not the time," Zuko snaps, but she just glares at him.
"Me and Zuko did get married," Katara states, leaning forward. Her cobalt eyes glisten in the light of the roaring fireplace.
Azulon throws his glass into it and the alcohol makes it flare. Everyone screams but Azula, Ozai, Mai and Katara. Bunny wraps herself tightly around Azula, Valerie cries until Mai pushes a pacifier into her mouth, and Kya's huge eyes become even wider.
"When?" growls Azulon as Ilah tries to pat his arm.
"The day after Thanksgiving," says Katara, straightening her posture and meeting the gilded eyes of her husband's grandfather. "We eloped."
Ilah gapes at them; Azulon looks at his second son.
"Why am I having such déjà vu?" His transfers from Zuko to Ozai, which relieves no one. "Nobody in this family has a proper wedding."
Azula raises her hand. "I did."
Azulon's expression softens and she does not hide her smirk of superiority.
"Yes, you had a lovely wedding to a lovely girl who is not an entirely inappropriate romantic choice."
Ty Lee brightly says, "Thank you."
"And," Azulon coldly, bitterly adds, "I'll have you know that none of you seem to know how to have a child within wedlock. It's impressive that none of you have any sense of honor."
Katara is the one to say, "Wasn't your wife pregnant when you married her?"
Azula cannot control her own wife, because Ty Lee bursts into laughter, shaking with the force of her giggles. It is enough to almost inspire choking her own bride to death beneath a Christmas tree.
Ty Lee sneezes and at last stops laughing.
Azulon silently sips his drink.
This will not be a very merry Christmas; a single comment or action can set him off for years.
Grudges are at the core of the Shinohai Family, and, as with all things, they are very good at them.
[X]
"I laughed because he was being mean to me. He was talking about Bunny," Ty Lee says, trying desperately to make her wife talk to her again. Or not divorce her. Laughing at Katara's sick burn would possibly lead to the end of their two-year marriage.
"Well," says Azula, at last looking at Ty Lee, "it isn't as if he is wrong. Bunny was an accident. An accident I love, but it is not cruelty if it is true. And you were not married to that asshole when you got knocked up."
"I want him to be kind to us. I want to have a happy little family with just you and Bunny and a second baby one day," Ty Lee says, rubbing Azula's shoulder.
Her wife pulls away, especially at the sudden suggestion of another child.
"And people in Hell want ice water," icily replies Azula, standing.
Ty Lee sighs and lets Azula walk away. She needs to calm down.
[X]
Azula walks in on Mai talking to Azulon. She and Ozai have disappointed him, but they seem to be the only ones he is happy with tonight.
"… and I demanded to be called Solstice in eighth grade. No one did, even though I didn't answer to Mai," she says, concluding a story that Azulon clearly pretended to like.
Ozai sees his daughter glaring from the hallway and stands up to calm his little princess down. He takes her aside and they stand in Ilah's sword collection room. They glint tantalizingly on the walls, tempting Azula to simply slaughter everyone in this luxurious cabin.
"Ty Lee is stupid, and she is hot. He'll forgive her for the laughter if she makes some ditzy apology," says Ozai. "Katara and Zuko, on the other hand, are condemned. It's good, little princess. Our team is winning, whether or not Ty Lee acts like a dumb Playboy bunny. My father loves dumb Playboy bunnies."
"Ick," comments Azula. "He seems interested in your wife too."
"Who isn't?" Ozai replies. "She is an ice princess and has his sense of humor. He wants to melt her as much as I did."
"Please tell me 'melt' is not a disgusting euphemism."
"I'm not sure if it is or not," Ozai says earnestly.
"It bothers me that three generations of men in my family want to sleep with Mai. Mai."
"And two thirds of them have."
"Again, ick."
"I would feign righteous indignation, but I think it's good for our team that he likes her. We want him to lean towards the red roses."
"The what?"
"The War of the Roses. It's a conflict within a historical royal family."
"Oh." Azula thinks Ozai has made that comparison in the past. "We might as well be one of those, except more Asian than English."
"Now," he says, giving his daughter a reassuring look that reminds her of the safety she felt as a child, "convince Ty Lee to make us look good even further, and perhaps the Red Roses can survive this Christmas."
Azula crosses her arms. She wants to be defiant, but instead sighs and caves in.
"I will talk to her," she says, slipping out of the sword room and trekking up the stairs.
[X]
Azulon sits across from Azula.
She backed out of talking to Ty Lee and decided to test the waters. Azula cannot construct the perfect comments until she knows her grandfather's current state of mind.
"The right woman comes into your life like a natural disaster," says Azulon and everyone nods whether they understand or agree or not. "They destroy everything you have but are very beautiful."
"Please tell me she has not destroyed all I have. She is not very smart, and probably did not even understand Katara's comment," Azula says, sipping Huckleberry coffee across from her grandfather. The woodstove crackles near them, warming the cold air between them.
"You're still in the will," he admits.
"That's not all I meant. I don't want you to be disappointed in me."
"You're still in the will," Azulon repeats.
Azula just smiles and nods. That appears to be the wisest response.
"Thank you," says Azula, batting her eyelashes.
"However," he says like an emperor as he finishes his coffee. "I'm making more decisions after the holidays, as I always do. If your wife insults me and the honor of our family again, we might have a problem."
"She won't," Azula vehemently insists, leaning forward. "I have total control over her."
Azulon faintly smirks at her. "That's my girl."
[X]
In the guest wing, Ty Lee is sulking and watching a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie with Bunny when Azula walks in. She grins brightly at her wife, but Azula knows she is angry too. Ty Lee simply is too frightened to show that she is unhappy with anyone, especially Azula.
"Do you want to go look at the Christmas lights? They are truly beautiful this year," states Azula, her words an offer but her tone an imposition.
"Yes," Ty Lee says, standing up. She pats Bunny on the head and murmurs at her to be good before sliding on a coat and shoes. She situates on her head her pink knit hat with the cat ears on it, and steps out of the door with her wife.
They stand back and look up at the luminescent manor.
Ty Lee forgets any tension. She always has been distracted by shiny things; Azula knows how to manipulate that.
"They are gorgeous," Ty Lee brightly says, looking up at the gigantic house. The lights glistening above the snow certainly are pretty. "And you're gorgeous and everything is gorgeous!"
Azula kisses her and softly orders, "Stop saying that word."
"Well, they're really pretty and you're really pretty," Ty Lee says, and Azula prepares to construct the apology Ozai suggested before Ty Lee presses her lips against Azula's. That makes it difficult to talk… or to want to talk.
Azula slides her hand up Ty Lee's back to her neck, and holds her close. They no longer feel the bitter cold of the Montana winter. The heat between them rivals the woodstove inside.
They are bound in blissful solitude for at least a few minutes.