A/N: Some Quick Facts About This Fic:
Chapters: 6.
Pairing: Azula / Ty Lee. Some Azula/Jin.
Rated: K+ for nothing you wouldn't see in LoK or A:TLA.
Notes: Alternate title: The Fresh Princess of Ba Sing Se. Also, this is a requestfic from Chasing the Endless Sunrise, or, well, is inspired by Drabble 62. There's no need to have read it to understand, though. This is a lot about Azula realizing the effect her actions had on Ba Sing Se, and through that, her actions having effects on other people, since that suggestion was posed in a lot of reviews.
Six Months in Ba Sing Se
Chapter One: In West Caldera Born and Raised...
Azula does not know how she allowed this to happen to herself.
She has toed the law for a good deal of time, but now she has been caught with her fingers smoking, and is not entirely sure if she can wriggle her way out of some form of penance. Now she sits in front of the throne, picking at her lips and trying to think of an excuse, any excuse. She is an adept liar, and has no idea why she cannot think of something.
"Azula, I don't want to do anything drastic," Zuko says from behind the flames. She cannot read him from this position and it is making her heart pound. Perhaps it is a good thing that she has a little bit of fear of Zuko; he is maturing into less of a joke of a Fire Lord. "But I have to do something."
"I killed rebels. I killed people who wanted to kill us!" Azula snaps, sitting straight up. Zuko recoils slightly and she fights back a smirk. "You can't penalize me for that! You should be thanking me and giving me a parade!"
Zuko scratches his neck. "I know. But, Azula, lightning through the eye is not my idea of due process."
Azula picks at her lips and grits her teeth. She does not understand why this is such an incredible problem, and it is immensely frustrating. But Zuko just sits there, still contemplating what he is supposed to do with her.
Finally, Fire Lord Zuko says, "I used to admire your control. You were calm and level headed ─ I mean if the lightning isn't evident enough ─ but you've gotten really reckless and out of control."
"You are not my father," Azula snaps and Zuko tries not to roll his eyes. "You cannot tell me I am out of control. I'm an adult and I can behave how I see fit."
"You are not technically a legal adult. And I technically do have the same rights as your parent. I'm your conservator and have legal─"
"Please shut up," Azula says sharply.
Zuko now does roll his eyes. He must admit he occasionally does feel like her parent. "I only know one person who can help you..." and he does not think Azula will like it.
"Don't say..."
"Our uncle," Zuko states and Azula's face turns ashen, even in the yellow light of the throne's flames. "I'm sending you for six months to Ba Sing Se, to see if he can make any influence on you."
Azula takes a deep breath, hoping this was a hallucination. Please let it have been a hallucination. But it most certainly was not and Azula quickly panics, her heart leaping into her throat.
"I will take the Boiling Rock! Please send me to the Boiling Rock!" Azula shrieks, as if Zuko has just told her he is going to push her off of a cliff.
"I went through great pains to even get you allowed into Ba Sing Se after you conquered the city and enslaved all of its residents. You're going."
"You're not my real dad!" Azula repeats, for the millionth time and Zuko is, for the first time since his decision, incredibly glad that he is sending Azula to the other side of the world.
He fought and fought to maintain custody of her despite her crimes. And, apparently, she went on some trip around the world to figure herself out after a near death encounter in the Forgetful Valley, which did not improve her cruelty or sleepwalking, but did give her a leg up in the negotiations. Not burning down any villages for three years swayed the Council reasonably into the royal siblings' favor.
But now, he is incredibly glad to start making arrangements for Azula's passage and stay.
"Think of it as a vacation," Zuko suggests and Azula glares daggers at him. He just swallows and dismisses her.
It will be a vacation to Fire Lord Zuko.
[X]
Two weeks later, Zuko and Azula stand in the front hall of the palace. She is dressed in green and absolutely loathing it, and she is surrounded by a number of suitcases packed with what she thinks she will need. Zuko is clutching documents and waiting for Iroh to finish his conversation about Pai Sho with the disinterested driver.
"Okay, I'm giving your passport to Uncle─" Zuko says, waving the sheet of paper.
"Why?" Azula demands in the tone of a sullen child.
"So you won't burn it. And there are a few rules that the Earth King set up. No fighting, no firebending at all, no being unescorted in public and, uh... I think that's it? You know, just use your common sense about what would get you arrested or deported." Zuko grimaces and hopes this does not blow up in his face. He put a lot of his reputation on the line to try to set Azula straight; his relationship with the Earth Kingdom is not exactly pleasant.
"What if I get arrested and deported intentionally?" Azula suggests, her gilded eyes lighting up with that possibility.
Zuko laughs with a small, smug smirk on his scarred face. "I worried about that for a moment, until I realized that the people arresting and deporting you would be your old best friends, the Dai Li. Do you want to be in their custody?"
"Ugh! I hate you." Azula makes a sound like an angry cat and crosses her arms like a child.
Zuko chuckles for a moment. "Do you remember when you used to hold your breath until you passed out when our parents would tell you that you couldn't have your way?"
Azula stops breathing, eyeing Zuko closely and he just shakes his head. She exhales and rolls her eyes, deciding that there is no way out of this as her uncle walks into the room.
"These are... many suitcases for just six months," he remarks as he examines Azula's belongings.
Zuko cocks an eyebrow. "You had to have an entire cabin on our ship just for your knick knacks."
With a shrug, Iroh responds, "Fair enough."
Azula grumbles something to herself about Iroh being a horrible hypocrite and smelling like knock-off incense, but both he and Zuko ignore her, and she is ushered out of the palace. This is one of the worst days of Princess Azula's life.
Ranked, they would be: the day she lost the throne to a water peasant, the Boiling Rock, the eclipse, the day Ty Lee broke up with her and the day she found her mother.
Yes, that is a suitable order.
She is completely silent as she is taken by a carriage to the pier, like a rich person instead of a princess who should be carried laboriously by underlings. Iroh attempts to make small talk twice, but Azula just stares out of the window. She has learned well to be silent, to ignore people, or, at times, she has pretended to be completely catatonic. It is effective and relatively relieving.
Finally, she is stowed on a ship as two muscular men carry all of her belongings on board. Iroh guides her to the lower floors. The ceiling is dripping. Just kill her now.
"I have given you the nicest and most spacious cabin for our journey," Uncle says and Azula supposes she has to respond somehow.
"Wise of you. You don't want me to get cramped up. Because when I get cramped up, I get nervous and when I get nervous I get scared and when I get scared people get thrown overboard." Azula takes two steps into her cabin before turning around, nearly nose to nose with Iroh. "And I am an eye for an eye kind of girl, if you know what I mean."
She slinks away before he can point out she was about to hit Zuko with lightning and slams the metal door in his face.
The waves are rocky and Azula demands to have no disturbances. She is kept up, as usual, by nightmares of vivid fears and memories, trying to prevent volcanic eruptions with her bare hands, and people slowly fading away as she needs to cling to them.
Slowly, she gets up and pulls on her clothes despite being groggy, and walks to go get fresh air. It is much, much easier when she is in the palace and can just go out to the courtyard for a little while.
When she gets onto the deck, she finds she is not alone. And it is not a man or woman on their night shift either; it is her uncle. Azula always imagined he would sleep constantly, being regarded as one of the laziest men in the Fire Nation.
Cautiously, she walks to him. "Why are you up?" she asks and Iroh is stunned that she has inquired about another human's condition. It is not a gesture he expects from Azula.
Iroh rubs his face for a moment. "Going to Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation always feels strange to me. I do it often, but the feelings never seem to get old."
"I never wanted to go back either. I have no idea how you live there," Azula replies and Iroh is again startled. He thinks she might be sleep deprived perhaps, he decides as he narrows his soft golden eyes and sees the sweat sticking to her and the dark circles under her eyes.
"I think of it the other way. They say the best way to get over your fears is exposure to them. When I moved to Ba Sing Se with your brother a decade ago, I came to overcome any remaining insecurities by proving to myself I could truly move on," Iroh explains and Azula remembers herself, rolling her eyes and staring at the ocean.
"Not everyone is as accomplished as you at being good," Azula says sharply.
Iroh just looks at her. "I am not very accomplished at being good. It took a lot more mistakes than I openly want to admit to get to this point."
Azula chews on her lip, disagreeing strongly with that. She has never seen him accused of anything that would make polite company squirm, although she is certain that in his years as a decorated general, he must have more than a few skeletons in the closet.
"I'm going to my room," Azula says softly and Iroh opens his mouth to ask her if she came here for a reason, but she is gone.
Zuko told his uncle that he should try to help Azula. Iroh has been under the impression for some time that Azula does not want to be helped. And Zuko reminded him that Zuko once had no desire for Iroh's intervention and it still managed to rub off on him in the end.
Iroh watches Azula disappear into the ship and stares at the horizon, darkness, shreds of clouds and choppy water as far as the eye can see.
He always thinks about the same things during this journey.
[X]
Iroh's Memories
It is a dark night, choppy waters, shreds of clouds. There are numerous nights like this at sea, and Iroh is familiar with them even as a man who fights on land. He is... haunted. There is nothing he desires to say, at this point. And there is no one he trusts enough to confide in, for machismo matters more than all else.
He is returning from the Siege of Ba Sing Se. They are nowhere near the Fire Nation at this point, and they have only just cast off from the land of the Earth Kingdom today. They will stop at the docks of one of the colonies tomorrow, gather severely lacking supplies, and then finally travel straight to the Fire Nation.
Iroh's attempt at peaceful contemplation is interrupted by someone walking into the command room.
"There's a letter for you," anxiously says an errand boy, his eyes wide with terror and his skin slick with sweat.
Iroh turns to him and accepts it wordlessly with a small nod. It has the royal seal; it must be from his father. Probably words of disappointment, or, less likely, to console him. The boy exits the room as quickly as he can, and Iroh opens the letter slowly.
He opens the letter, scratching at his cheekbone, and he is stunned only a few words into reading it. Floored. His father has died. That almost makes him tear up the letter, not able to handle death upon death upon death, but he decides to keep reading.
That was a mistake.
It is then that he reads Azulon's dying request, and it is then, that Iroh's fate shifts forever.
When they stop to restock, he leaves the ship and decides to wander. He has heard many times of people traveling the world and finding many things they were not looking for. It was something he thought he would do upon retirement, if he was not immediately made Fire Lord when he was done with military service.
Iroh baffles those with him by his absence, but he does not feel the need to explain.
He just goes searching, not for anything in particular.
[X]
In Ba Sing Se, a beautiful girl in a green dress that just doesn't seem to be the right color for her, with her soft brown hair braided with green pearls, walks through the streets of the Upper Ring. She blends in well in the city, and no one would know from first glance that she was partially responsible for their fall.
Ty Lee throws a rock at a wall before quickly glancing around. Oops. She knows very well she needs to be on her best behavior because she has a strong feeling that the police, Dai Li and the majority of Ba Sing Se would take great pleasure in throwing her into prison, regardless of her being a perfectly legal citizen.
She wound up here by a sequence of events that she could have easily prevented, and she supposes she likes it. Most days she contemplates moving back to the Fire Nation, and she feels as if the novelty of Ba Sing Se is gradually wearing off. But the Fire Nation has nothing for her anymore.
Her decision to move her was solely reliant on the fact that staying in one place for too long feels wrong to her. The evident reasoning for that would probably be that she is running from something, but she has no idea what.
Six years in the Kyoshi Warriors was already too much. She was happy there for a while, but then she decided to travel the world. And as of two weeks ago, she has been a citizen of Ba Sing Se, which is better than living out of a suitcase wherever she can find a bed, but is getting frustrating.
She never wanted to wait for life to come to her. Her travels were enlightening and she found herself in a number of ways, and found a lot of people who made a difference. But she's getting older, she supposes. It's been almost a decade since the war ended, and she still... doesn't think she can stay in one place.
Her teachers at school used to scold her for fidgeting too much, for not being able to sit still. Her parents grew exasperated every time she ran away, starting when she was eight years old. Her desire expressed to Suki to travel places for the warriors instead of living on the island turned into breaking free of all ties and letting herself soar.
Ty Lee returns to her apartment, which is nice, and she got solely because of Suki and Sokka, who were both glad that she decided to settle down.
"We were worried about you. Or, well, I was. Just running around the globe is really unsafe, even for someone with, uh, your talents," Suki says, smiling at Ty Lee. "We have plenty of contacts in Ba Sing Se. You can really never get bored there."
Ty Lee doubts that, but she gladly accepts their help.
She flops down on her bed, moaning in frustration. Yet another fruitless job search, yet another day wandering through the city and asking for work, and never receiving. There is not a single promising lead, and Ty Lee buries her face in her pillow.
This is impossible. Being an adult is impossible and she just misses her life when other people took care of her. She finds herself missing her home often, but, for some reason, she can never summon the courage to go back to the Fire Nation.
Why she can't is something Ty Lee does not want to confront. Perhaps that is what she is running from: her past.
She supposes everything goes back to her wanting to have her own identity. Her parents could not tell her apart from her sisters. Her own parents.
Azula could tell them apart, despite refusing to learn their names. No, no, no, no thinking about exes. Because when Ty Lee thinks about exes, she starts to miss them, and then she gets into another relationship and the cycle begins again.
Wriggling beneath her silky blankets, she falls asleep despite the daylight, and decides to continue looking for a job tomorrow.
[X]
Azula arrives in Ba Sing Se and there is nothing but loathing in her gilded eyes. She glances around at the buildings and the endless stone. It smells wrong, although, to her, the entire Earth Kingdom smells wrong. She can remember her time here and it is all poisoned by the ultimate failure. After all she did, it was just swept out from under her... like everything else seems to be.
"How long has it been since you were here?" Iroh asks and Azula wonders why he has not given up yet on casual conversation. She has been, still, entirely silent.
"That shop sells simply the best limes. And the owner is a very kind man who has a knack for kitting."
"How has your friend Mai been?"
"When it rains, sometimes that drain will overfill, so be careful walking that sidewalk if you are wearing new shoes."
"Did Zuko have a date to the Fire Days Festival?"
It makes her want to throttle him. His disposition is just aggravating to Azula. She has faint memories of him being slightly harder and sharper, but at the same time, he was a bit of a loon and his passion for tea was greater than his passion for warfare.
How on earth he got Azulon to favor him baffles Azula. It is that which leads Azula to believe that perhaps he were more ruthless once, more like Azula once, but it is not as if she wants to ask. That would make Iroh think she was interested in him and his life. She intends to be as icy and detached as she can possibly manage for the entirety of her six month stay.
"Ten years?" Azula offers... yes, there was that ten year anniversary party a few months ago that Azula hid from. Zuko told everyone she was sick, but they saw through it, of course. "I'm pretty sure conquering a city gets you a lifetime ban of sorts."
Iroh is not sure what to say to that. Azula makes him uncomfortable, he must admit. He has never had true common ground with her. Although he regrets seeing her as just an extension of her father, he still finds her to be too much like Ozai to let him ignore the metallic taste in his mouth.
She and Lu Ten did get along. There was that, he supposes.
Finally, they arrive at his tea shop, which Azula does admit is much nicer than she thought it would be. Her eyes examine every single crack in the stone, study the lettering and, as they walk inside, the dragon motifs.
"You used to love dragons," Iroh laughs and Azula digs her fingernails into her palm. "You had all of those books about their history."
"And you killed the last one," Azula replies softly and Iroh blinks in surprise. "Where am I sleeping?"
Silently, Iroh leads her up the stairs to his apartment and leads her to the guest room.
It is spacious, Azula supposes, more spacious than she imagined it to be. The amenities are decent, but nothing compared to the Fire Nation royal palace. But she is too tired to actually complain or rearrange anything, so she locks herself in her bedroom, pries open the window and slips under her blankets to go to sleep as the moon rises over the city.
[X]
"You're kidding," Azula snarls as Iroh hands her the apron. "I'm not ─ my footservants are dressed better than this."
They are standing in the kitchen of the Jasmine Dragon as the sun has just barely risen, and Iroh is briefing Azula on her first day as a waitress. Iroh expected there to be a good deal of resistance from Azula, particularly in having her work as a waitress. However, Iroh has come to realize that working in the service industry is good for people, particularly selfish people.
"You can make it more fashionable, if you would like," Iroh suggests and Azula forces herself to swallow and not burn his face off. "Emi wears her─ ah, there the blushing dahlia herself is."
Azula narrows her eyes at him until she hears the soft footsteps behind her and turns around. A slender girl, a little older than Azula, dark brown hair and tan Earth Kingdom skin. Her eyes are almond and slathered with green powder.
"The blushing dahlia?" Azula sneers and Iroh smiles and blushes. This man used to represent the best of the Fire Nation, is all Azula can think.
"Uhm... hi," Emi offers, waving. Azula just turns back around with a small scoff in the back of her throat.
"You know my nephew, Emi," Iroh says, and Emi nods with a slight blush that Azula notices with utter disgust. "This is my niece."
"The Cr─oh, uh I don't, know her..."
"The Crazy Princess will do," Azula says sharply, seizing her apron and draping it over the only green clothes she has, which feel ill fitting and unflattering.
Azula walks into the restaurant and starts examining the tables. She then blinks, utterly stunned that she has no idea what to do.
Emi then walks in and Azula sincerely wishes Zuko had sent her to the Boiling Rock.
"You just have to flip over the chairs and─"
"I know how to flip over a chair," Azula says sharply, seizing the leg of one and tossing it onto the floor with a loud crash that makes Emi jump. "But, clearly, since you're the expert, perhaps you should show me the ropes today."
Azula then picks up the chair she tossed and sits down on it as if it is a throne. Emi squints at her for a moment, a tad baffled.
Emi swallows audibly and says, "Oh, okay."
It is the beginning of a beautiful rivalry.
[X]
The fourth day of Azula's cruel and brutal imprisonment is the most interesting so far. For two days she has been doing this degrading labor, well, mostly forcing Emi to do everything as Iroh watched in mild pain. And then at dinner Iroh would lecture and lecture and say proverbs and Azula would stare blankly at the window until he was done talking.
Perhaps he should have been some sort of professor, to get the desire to lecture endlessly out of him. But when Azula suggested that, he just laughed as if it was a joke.
Azula is waiting tables as Emi is out, and she is trying not to get aggravated at the customers. She starts thinking of it as a training exercise, and that helps slightly. The flirtatious people, the rude people, those who speak to her as if she is something less than human. It disgusts her.
But the billionth table of the day is interesting.
"Hi," says the girl and Azula blinks several times. It is not a demand for tea and as Azula slides the menu in front of her, their hands touch slightly. "You're new here, aren't you?"
"Yes," Azula says quietly, then bracing herself for the insult.
"I'm a regular," the girl says with a warm grin. Azula still cannot tell what she wants. "I'm Jin, and you're really pretty. If that's not too, uh, forward."
Azula has no response to that. Yesterday Iroh made her take a two hour break after she threw hot tea onto the lap of a man flirting with her, but she must admit she likes the way this girl is looking at her.
"Oh, it's not," Azula purrs, a smirk flickering on her lips. "So, you like this place?"
"It's the best place in the city. How do you know Iroh?" Jin inquires and Azula likes her sweetness. Likes it because it reminds her of her ex-girlfriend... yes... but Azula does appreciate being checked out.
"He's my uncle, actually," Azula says and Jin's eyes flash in surprise.
"Zuko has a sister?" Jin asks and Azula's lips part in surprise.
"You don't know?" Azula whispers, realizing how ridiculous she sounds and fighting the blush of embarrassment.
"I thought his name was Lee until suddenly I learned he was actually the Fire Lord," Jin says with a small grimace. "I grew up pretty much under a rock in the Lower Ring."
"Lee?" Azula cocks an eyebrow.
"He told me he worked for the circus," Jin says, smiling faintly at the memory. Azula cackles and Jin examines her closely. "He was pretty nice. Iroh came by Pao's Tea Shop a few years ago and invited me up here and I come by about every week now."
"So you know my brother how?" Azula asks as another patron clears his throat loudly for her to come over. She shoots him Ozai's glare and he sets down his tea shop silently.
"Just friends," Jin says and Azula smirks. Lying. Which... means she is definitely interested.
And she seems to either have no idea, or not care that Azula conquered Ba Sing Se. Most women, Azula has noticed, have been fairly into that. But they were Fire Nation women.
"So, what do you want?" Azula says before realizing it is a bit suggestive. "About tea, I mean. Of course."
Jin giggles. "Whatever the weird special is that Iroh has up. I'm adventurous."
"Oh."
"About tea, I mean. Of course."
And Azula slowly walks to the kitchens. This stay just got a bit more interesting.
"Does she flirt with everybody?" Azula inquires as she reaches her uncle.
"No. I have tried to set her up with several nice young men," Iroh replies, still smiling at the display. His eyes are twinkling and Azula hates it. "I like a girl who has a type."
"I'm not Zuko." Silence. "So, are people actually unaware that I, hm, was the one who caused the occupation?"
"It is not exactly a fact the Earth Kingdom broadcasts," Iroh admits with a shrug. "No one announced the occupation at the time, and it was not something King Kuei was proud of, to say the least."
Azula just cocks an eyebrow. This stay just got even more interesting.
[X]
At the end of Azula's first week in Ba Sing Se, in the apartment above the teashop, Iroh and Azula sit down for dinner. Her feet hurt, she is in a terrible mood, and the food is nothing compared to what she can have made for her in the palace. There is a reason she worked so hard to remain with her brother, and she already hates Ba Sing Se after two weeks of her six month sentence.
Iroh is prepared to inform Azula of her new job, given that Emi quit and Iroh could not even convince her to come back with a beautiful bouquet and offer of a raise. Something about six months of dealing with that dragon-woman being utter torment.
Their fight was quite unsettling yesterday, and did result in some severe damage to the shop. Azula's temper had been more controlled than Iroh imagined it would be, but Emi asked her to set a table and... it spiraled from there, to Iroh's dismay.
"I need you to interview and find a new waitress for the Jasmine Dragon," Iroh says, clasping his hands. "It will be your first real job, and I think you will find it quite satisfying once you suceed."
"You're kidding," Azula sighs, rolling her eyes viciously. Iroh shrugs and gives her a sympathetic look, although he is the one tormenting her. "I'm not going to find you a new waitress."
"It is your fault that we are short one," Iroh says warmly and Azula glares at him in rage. "You have your father's angry glare."
That was intended to be a compliment, Iroh notes, realizing it probably did not come off as such.
"Ugh!" Azula shrieks, throwing the pot of flowers off of the kitchen table. Iroh is unflinching as the stone collides with the wooden floor.
"That chip is coming out of your salary," Iroh remarks as he lifts up the pot and finds an unattractive scratch in his well maintained floor.
"You're not paying me." Azula stands up and makes a fiery, melodramatic exit.
Azula wraps her blankets around herself in bed, sighing repeatedly in utter aggravation. She cannot believe she is even in this situation, and she cannot believe that there seems to be no apparent escape. So now he is sending her on errands and making her do chores.
It is not her fault that Emi was so offended. People should simply deal with Azula and treat her with the proper respect that a princess deserves. She should absolutely not be penalized for the poor attitude of someone so beneath her. Crazy Princess or not, Azula would never be treated with such disrespect in the Fire Nation.
She does not sleep; all she can do is stare at the ceiling and count the reasons why she hates absolutely everything.
[X]
Azula's Memories
A six year old Azula is wrapped around her brother, her elbows digging into him as she tries to pry her stuffed dragon out his hands. She is five seconds from burning him alive when they are interrupted by the looming shadow and clearing throat of their elder cousin.
"Don't fight," says Lu Ten, grabbing Zuko's shoulder and pulling him away from Azula.
Azula scoffs in response as Zuko immediately obeys his older cousin. "You're in military school."
Lu Ten then raises a finger. "I wasn't finished yet. Don't fight; train armies to fight for you."
Zuko rubs his arm and squints at Azula.
"It's mine," Azula says weakly and Lu Ten looks between them.
"Just because dad said I was too old for it and you could have it doesn't mean it's yours now," Zuko whines, tucking it in more tightly to his chest.
"Well, if I can't have it, neither of us can," she says, lunging forward with burning hands, which are quickly grabbed by her cousin and stifled.
"I think that we can work out something more interesting to solve this," Lu Ten says with a small sparkle in his eyes.
Zuko sighs. Azula smirks. Lu Ten almost hates how easy they are to mess with.
[X]
The second week passes by more quickly than the first, which was painful and excruciating. Azula goes through the motions of her shifts, and manages not to anger any of the customers. Iroh says something about being proud of her progress, and Azula replied that being proud of her progress as a waitress was the most ultimately depressing thing she had ever heard.
He chuckled at that. Like it was a joke. Like it was a joke.
Azula is closing up the shop on the last day of the week, relieved it is over, less relieved that she still has twenty-two of them left. So far, no one has bothered to respond to the 'Now Hiring' sign that Azula put up, seeing as it is written in tiny print and tucked away half behind a curtain.
And then everything changes when the door opens.
"We're closed," Azula sighs. "Unless you're robbing the place, in which case, thank you, I could use an excuse to burn down this tinderbox."
"Azula?" asks a stunned, girlish voice and the princess spins around, her heart skipping, certain she is hallucinating.
Right there, standing in front of her, clutching a half-crumpled resume in one manicured hand, is her ex-girlfriend. Azula and Ty Lee just stare at each other, lips parted slightly in surprise. This is the last place they ever imagined that they would meet again.
Iroh steps out from inside of the kitchen and smiles warmly, as if he does not notice how shocked the girls are, "Are you here to apply for the job, Ty Lee?"
Ty Lee regains some of her faculties and nods.
Azula tries not to faint.