*EXTREME ABUSE WARNING*
Author's Note: I'm not really a writer, but I love Tyzula stories a lot, lot, lot. And I've had the idea in my mind for a long time that there is a way it could really all go disastrously wrong. It hasn't been written yet, so I thought I'd give it a shot. It was pretty fun to write, so, hey, maybe there will be more from moi someday.
Infamous Last Words
"I trust you, Azula," Ty Lee cries out as she sees the light in her eyes fading. "And I need you to trust me right now."
No. Azula will not walk away again. There she is, disappearing, but this time she is not walking out of the door, this time she is choosing between life and death. Because Ty Lee should have done something, or listened, and everyone has so much regret right now as Azula is lying there, under observation, unsure whether she ingested enough to die or not.
"You trust me?" Azula whispers and it is the first thing she says that has not been slurred beyond comprehension from her exhaustion and the amount of sedative she took.
"I trust you," Ty Lee says more fiercely this time, stroking Azula's sweaty bang from her face. Ty Lee positions her body to block sight of Zuko and how he paces and looms over her. "And I trust that you can get better, and I trust that you're not a monster."
Azula nods, and she cannot do more than nod because her body is weak right now. "Don't hold your breath," Azula slurs before closing her eyes and lying back in the comfort of her mattress as healers fret wildly.
"I trust that you're not going to hurt me, and I trust that I'm not going to let you hurt yourself again," Ty Lee continues, and Azula closes her eyes.
Princess Azula does open them, and Ty Lee is waiting for her. Azula's lips are touched by those of her ex-girlfriend, and their bodies press against each other.
Azula lived, and now Ty Lee is determined to bring her back to life.
"I trust you, Azula," Ty Lee says softly as she strokes the princess's hair. "I'll leave the Kyoshi Warriors."
Ty Lee has decided to redeem Azula. She knows that it is the best of all possible tasks, and Ty Lee is assured that she is the only person who can truly get through to Azula. Ty Lee is the one who knows Azula best, and she knows that her love is the movement that could provide incentive for Azula to change.
Azula has asked that she not leave, and, while Ty Lee does love her life on Kyoshi Island, she thinks that it will be much more fulfilling for her to heal Azula and perhaps rekindle their old love, than to go through endless training exercises in the snow.
Maybe they can go back, when Azula is inevitably better. All Azula needs is a little bit of love, no matter how much Zuko and Mai keep protesting.
"I want to trust you too," Azula says quietly as she pulls Ty Lee closer to her body. "But I need you to prove it."
Ty Lee rests her head on Azula's rising and falling chest, feeling how her body has begun to waste away with her own neglect of it. It is at that moment, that Ty Lee knows she has found her true calling.
When Ty Lee tells Suki she will not be returning, she chuckles to herself at an inside joke.
"Azula called a little louder."
"I trust you, Azula. And I believe that you can do this. Just start with standing up," Ty Lee says gently, trying to encourage Azula without sounding patronizing.
Azula stares at her feet, not wanting to move them. But she turns to Ty Lee, and she sees the look in her eyes of love and lack of pity, and so Azula slowly stands up. She starts to stumble from the atrophy she has suffered, and Ty Lee catches her.
They are close to each other, and Ty Lee thinks that they almost kiss, but they break apart as Ty Lee helps Azula get ready for her first meal with other people.
"I trust her, Zuko," Ty Lee says and her best friend frowns faintly. "I trust that she can get better, and I trust that when she sees she is a better person, that she's a better person."
Zuko sighs. What he saw at dinner was impressive, he has to say. Maybe Ty Lee does have it in her, even if Zuko is unsure of how love could cure Azula.
"I'm willing to try anything to help her," Zuko says earnestly. "But don't get hurt."
Ty Lee laughs, trying to imagine it as a joke.
Trust slowly fades. The next two years go by surprisingly quickly. Ty Lee does not miss Kyoshi Island for a moment as she helps Azula through her rebirth. She has been there for every high and every low, and every second in between.
Ty Lee and Azula rebuild, piece by piece. Eventually they bed each other, and Ty Lee wonders if perhaps the sex feels so good because it is healing someone.
"I trust you, and I love you," Ty Lee says warmly.
"I love you too." Azula has never said that before. "I love you too, because everyone I know goes away in the end, and you don't. You're the only one who came back."
Azula has never been so honest before, not once. Ty Lee holds back her tears, although she is overwhelmed with emotion as she is naked with Azula, feeling the princess allow herself to be vulnerable just one time.
"Let's get married," Ty Lee whispers.
Trust slowly fades. Five years go back at an agonizingly slow pace.
Ty Lee wonders if love was not enough. Ty Lee sometimes wonders why she gets up when Azula when she screams, and why she tolerates the abuse just because Azula is hurting. But she also knows that this is what she is supposed to do. It will take time to redeem Azula; it will take time to make her feel better.
Those are the words that Ty Lee tells herself to help her get through the day.
Trust is nonexistent.
"You're not going anywhere," Azula says sharply, seizing Ty Lee's arm.
Ty Lee sighs softly and turns to kiss Azula, to press their hips gently together for that spark. The spark that has faded emotionally but does not fade physically, at least.
"I am going to lunch with Mai. I'm coming back and you know that I'm coming back," Ty Lee whispers before kissing Azula's neck. She gently sucks there and Azula reacts with pleasure.
And, against all odds, Ty Lee manages to escape for lunch.
Mai asks how Azula is doing. Ty Lee tells her that Azula is making progress, because being married to Azula has made Ty Lee just as much of a liar as her. Mai asks Ty Lee to roll up her sleeves. Ty Lee leaves and does not speak to Mai again.
Two years pass and Ty Lee has lost the light in her eyes that she tried to rekindle in Azula's. She feels dizzy and sore, and most days, she can only get out of bed because she knows that Azula needs her more than she needs herself. Ty Lee knows that she cannot leave Azula, because Azula only does this out of fear.
"I hate you. Don't leave me." That is what everything erratic or cruel Azula does means. Because Ty Lee loves her unconditionally, and so Azula is able to express that. Even if it is miserable for Ty Lee, she knows it is the only way to keep Azula on this endless path to redemption.
But tonight? Tonight Ty Lee has lied and Azula has believed her. She said she needed to help her younger sister out across town, but she goes to the Water Tribe Embassy. Ty Lee feels such regret, because Azula trusted Ty Lee when she lied, and now she is going to betray that trust a thousand times over.
"You trust me. And… and you make me feel so special," Ty Lee says softly, pressing her body against his.
He probably should protest, but he has seen the tattoos of bruises down her skin, he has seen the marks of burns on her body that he has only witnessed on people damaged by the war. He probably should intervene with her relationship, but Zuko has tried, Suki has tried, everyone has.
Ty Lee is convinced that doing the right thing for Azula is more important than doing the right thing for herself.
And so he gives her the love she deserves for as long as he can.
"She trusted me," Ty Lee whispers weakly.
It did not progress for very long, the pregnancy. And therefore Azula probably never has to know. But Azula trusted Ty Lee again, trusted someone for the first time, and Ty Lee is betraying her again.
Mai's voice echoes: "It's not betrayal to leave someone who controls you and burns you and rapes you."
Zuko's voice: "Ty Lee, it's nice to see you care, but it's hard to see you in this much pain. It's just as bad as when she was hurting."
Mai again: "If you don't leave her, I don't think I can be around either of you anymore."
Zuko's voice: "If you ever need help leaving, I can arrange it. No one would know."
Ty Lee frowns. They are all wrong. They do not trust that Azula will be able to change. Ty Lee does, and so, since someone believes in Azula, she will get better.
And Ty Lee loves her, after all.
"I trusted you!" Azula screeches as she finds out.
Ty Lee tried to hide it. She kisses Azula, she kisses and holds her and promises that they will one day run away and start another way. She tells her that he coerced her, even though that is a lie. Even though Azula might as well have forced Ty Lee into Sokka's warm and surprisingly caring arms.
Of course Ty Lee should have known that Azula would find out about the miscarriage. Of course, of course…
"I trust you too. We're married. After all of those years of you in an asylum, or gone, and me missing you, we're together. And we've made each other feel better. Our love has conquered everything," Ty Lee says honestly, so honestly, because that is the truth.
Love conquers all. Even the wickedness, pain and mistrust that has never been washed away from Azula.
"You are no different from anyone else. You were a waste of my time," Azula says coldly, sinking away.
Ty Lee grabs her arms, because she can feel Azula trying to disappear, trying to revert back to before. It makes Ty Lee feel like she is racing around in a circle, trying to catch her own tail.
It is so futile, but she kisses Azula and straddles her and tells her all of the sweet fables that Ty Lee thinks no one believes anymore at this point.
"You have to trust me, Azula. You have to trust me. It's just a few days in the Earth Kingdom. Nothing will happen." It is ten years since the Comet, and Ty Lee has a chance to go see her old friends. Ty Lee has seen no one but Azula and Zuko for so long, and she asked if Azula wanted to come, but Azula refused adamantly.
"Nothing will happen like your miracle of virgin pregnancy? I trust you as far as I can throw you," Azula says coldly.
"That was two years ago," Ty Lee says gently as she walks forward.
"You're going to do it to, aren't you? Like mother and Zuko and Mai and you, and you are no better than them. What has my brother paid you to make you pretend to love me? To try to keep me docile in this prison," Azula snarls through bared teeth.
"I do love you, Azula. I love you and I need you to trust me."
Azula is pushing her to the bed, and Ty Lee thinks it might be different. She thinks the kiss that tears at her lip might be different for the first and most terrifying time.
It is different, because her neck is burning not just with pressure but with blue flame. And the last thing, the very last thing she sees are tears not of her own dripping from a woman she deluded herself into thinking she can fix.
And blue. So much blue.
They find them both dead in the same morning. Zuko looks around, attempting to find some sign of what could warrant such an atrocity. I could have saved her, his brain tells him, but he thinks that they were doomed from the start.
Azula is still breathing, albeit she is deeply unconscious from drinking ten times the dosage of a sedative for her body. Zuko tries to save her, that goes awry and she dies before the night is over in the hospital. Zuko thinks for a moment that it is just like how Ty Lee came into her life, when Azula was in the middle of a self-inflicted overdose. But she killed the one thing that loved her enough to save her.
But the most disturbing thing, the most disturbing thing is the unseeing eyes of the one girl who trusted in the goodness in the world so wholeheartedly that she fell in love with a monster. Glazed over, staring at the ceiling, her neck burned beyond repair, her lungs void of air.
Zuko quietly closes her eyes.
They requested to be burned on the same pyre.
And they are.