Ty Lee stands in a gorgeous small room in the guest house of the Fire Nation royal palace. She is with her fiancé as he shows her around her new lodgings. The acrobat is distant, but she listens to Zuko regardless. He is a kind man and Ty Lee could have done far, far worse in the realm of arranged marriages.
Zuko stops at the easel Ty Lee has set up. "So you paint now?" he asks quietly, looking intrigued. Ty Lee just shrugs.
"I have a lot of weird talents. None of them are super useful, though," Ty Lee admits with a small, carefree smile.
"Will you paint me?" Zuko asks and Ty Lee shifts from foot to foot.
"I've never really painted someone I knew," Ty Lee says slowly, sounding pained. Zuko swallows; he did not intend to upset her.
"You don't have to," Zuko says as he sits down. "But I think it's good to paint somebody that you love."
"I would like to paint the person I love," Ty Lee whispers, more to herself than Zuko.
But Ty Lee swallows her reluctance and removes the painting of Caldera from her easel. She situates a fresh piece of canvas as Zuko closes his eyes and lies on the sofa. After a brief study of his face and body, particularly the contours of his form and the shades of his scar, she mixes a palette of expensive paints.
She has everything she has ever wanted. Except for one thing. But it is not something Ty Lee needs, nor something she will ever receive. If she is intended to marry Zuko, she is intended to marry Zuko, and there is nothing she can do about it. All she can manage is to pretend to love him. Or maybe she does love him. She is not certain.
"So, how's Azula?" Ty Lee asks as Zuko attempts to pose. She giggles girlishly at his motions and he seems to be proud of it.
"She's... Azula?" Zuko offers, looking confused. Ty Lee shrugs again, not bothering to delve further into conversation. "She's not doing so well."
"Oh." Ty Lee swallows. "I miss her a lot."
"You can see her whenever you want," Zuko offers kindly. She looks sad and he has never seen Ty Lee sad before. It unnerves him; he wants her to be happy.
"I don't think she wants to see me," Ty Lee murmurs. Azula, the one that got away. Everybody has somebody they wish was still loving them but they aren't loving anymore. "But you sure want to see me."
"Of course I do," Zuko says, trying to ignore the look in her eyes she gets when she talks about Azula.
Zuko falls asleep as Ty Lee paints, he drifts off into a strange dream about his father. And when he wakes, his girlfriend has gone off to bed, and her painting is complete. Prince Zuko stands up off of the sofa, cracking his knuckles and his back, and walks to the picture.
It is at that moment that his eyes flash, stunned.
The painting is not of him.
It is of Azula.