Chapter Three: The Date
Azula somehow finds herself at a candlelit table in an upscale restaurant with Ty Lee. She is trying to think of this as an investigation in order to win this game, and not a romantic date with someone who makes her stomach squirm with virulent hatred. But the questions are all about a fucking marriage.
"So, when did we decide to have kids?" is Azula's conversation topic change after discussing the menu and the new chef at an upscale favorite restaurant.
Ty Lee looks out as if someone heard that within their private room. "It was a me begging you for a while thing. And then a you agreeing and everyone else panicking and insisting that you be psychoanalyzed to make sure you were mentally fit to have a child."
Azula hesitates. "And that was Azusami? Who was her father?"
"Next question?" Ty Lee suggests, looking uncomfortable. Azula most certainly has her, if she continues at this exhilarating rate. "Kazumi is mine."
"But she looks just like me. Who's her father?" Azula demands, leaning forward.
"Next question?" Ty Lee continues and Azula is about to throw the table over when the waitress arrives with their appetizers, looking quite nervous.
"This seems like a very sad and cold marriage, if you can't discuss that," Azula says calmly as she leans back. Oh, poor, poor Ty Lee and thinking Azula is actually in love with her.
Ty Lee runs her tongue along her teeth. "There are things I think we should gently ease into."
"Fine. Which of us proposed?"
"You," Ty Lee says and Azula sees her tiny sigh of relief. "It was not romantic, but not unromantic either, if you know what I mean? Sexy. It was a sexy proposal."
Azula has no idea what she means, and she can only manage to play along with the nonsense small talk for one course of their meal before she needs her more serious questions satisfied.
"How do I know that this isn't just a game? How do I know that maybe I lost my mind or my memories or you called up my old Dai Li pals and now you're trying to make me believe this life," Azula purrs and Ty Lee barely manages not to choke on her oolong tea.
"You have two kids," Ty Lee says softly, her eyes looking either hurt or guilty. But they are genuinely sad, and genuinely human instead of plastic for the first time. Azula keeps that tender guilt in mind, before allowing Ty Lee to change the subject to something more comfortable for herself. Azula will get nowhere if she pushes Ty Lee to the edge again. "And I mean, how do you even fill in twelve years?"
"I wouldn't be shocked if the Avatar and Zuko thought it was merciful to lock me up," Azula says calmly, and she does not get another reaction of guilt. She gets an angry twitch of Ty Lee's lips.
"Like you think about me and Mai."
Azula's eyes flash before she decides to quickly change her approach after the comment on her hypocrisy.
"That's the most logical conclusion. Don't give me the two kids. I can... Zuko has one of them who looks an awful lot like me. Maybe they're his. Maybe they're mine by a very unkind method. Maybe I've been locked up playing house and I got sick of it─"
"Those are ridiculous theories! I don't even know how you could say that!" Ty Lee screams, before seeing the people in the restaurant turning to stare and ducking her head down. Azula thinks perhaps she protests too much.
Azula wanted it to be time travel, wanted it to be spirits. But it might have been more sinister, and she does not know which to choose from.
"Let's talk about now, seeing as I'm stuck here. We were together once, a long time ago," Azula states dismissively, her lips contorted into a faint frown. "But you have to realize that I have no clue what happened to get us back together. I can't imagine myself ever agreeing to even speak to you again."
Ty Lee glances around at the walls again, examining her peachy hands. "I always loved you."
"I don't care." Azula is startled at her own vehemence, but she does not regret it.
"We got together really slowly, and fell apart a lot of times really quickly, and got back together again and again. Eventually, all of those pieces fell into place," Ty Lee says warmly, although Azula can see the hurt in her eyes.
"That's conveniently vague," Azula says coldly, trying to restrain herself from simply combusting. "Tell me what you said to get me with you, if I actually did. Why would I agree to marry you? What game are you playing?"
Now Ty Lee does not even try to mask her sadness and fear. Azula likes it, Azula thrives on watching Ty Lee's hope be crushed under her feet, even though she knows that it is not in her best interest.
"You proposed to me. I just told you and you can read people like scrolls, can't you? If I'm lying about how much I loved that moment, then you must be such a fraud," Ty Lee says softly, and Azula is not sure if she is insulted or not. She does not react either way. "It was after a long while of being together without breaking up. It was perfect."
Azula takes a slow breath through her mouth, the migraine jolting through her like a lightning strike. She just cannot imagine being the person that she is. How could Azula have gotten to this point? How could she have bent to their will and decided to live her life the way Zuko and mother and the Avatar all wanted her to?
"Why?" Azula asks, shuddering as she manages to hold back the sobs that want to escape her lips. She is the strong one; she is the one stuck in this maze that someone thinks she cannot escape, but she will outsmart, and she cannot break down and lose her mind. "I can't figure out this story from just bits and pieces, and if you supposedly are my wife, then you owe me honesty."
"You were redeemed. Because Zuko refused to quit, and I..." Ty Lee gently nudges her plate away from herself. "I helped. I was... we were the incentive for change in you."
That begins to make sense, Azula supposes. If the spirits presume that Ty Lee would be the one to slowly heal Azula and manage to make her a functioning member of society, then tossing Azula into the middle of a peaceful marriage must be their best way of getting her to change.
"So, I fell in love with you again. Zuko said that I was found, and then...?"
"You broke down even more. No one thought you could even go lower than that," Ty Lee says and Azula grimaces. "But, you proved everyone wrong like you always do. Zuko got legal custody of you and decided to put you together at your own pace. Which was, uh, pretty slow. Extremely slow, actually."
"And then my true love came along and kissed me better? Is that the lie you're trying to sell me? How gullible do you even think I am?" Azula snarls.
"That's not at all how it went," Ty Lee says fiercely. "And we're still not all the way better because nobody was a magic cure. It all took so much time and so much crying and..."
"We're leaving. Take me to the pier." Azula stands up and Ty Lee stares at her. "I'm giving you a second chance. Don't question it."
Ty Lee does not.
[X]
"Do they still have that weird candyfloss stuff my dad wouldn't let me eat by the water?" Azula asks, and Ty Lee nods, the two of them walking.
People do stare, Azula notices. But it does not feel horrible.
Or, at least, it does not feel horrible until Ty Lee walks to buy the candyfloss and Azula moves to sit down and save a bench for them both, since Ty Lee is great at getting discounts from male cashiers, and Azula could probably save an entire amphitheatre if she wanted to.
Azula is quite liking the feeling of old times until her head splits, and she can see red. The princess opens her eyes, they are painful as she stares around her in an utter panic.
She thinks she is still by the water, but it looks... as she remembers it outside of this life. Azula is spinning around, staring at the passersby, all with blurred and distorted faces. Some of them snap in half and soak into the blurry buildings and it makes Azula have to force herself not to hyperventilate.
"Princess!" shouts a loud voice Azula does not recognize, and she moves to start running, looking at her hands and seeing their difference, their youth, the freshness of the scars from clawing herself to bits.
Oh Agni, no, no, no...
Azula runs and can see the soldiers after her. Her feet are bare and she can feel something heavy on one hand. Remnants of handcuffs. Remnants of handcuffs.
She almost throws up but she instead turns, running towards an alleyway and wondering when this happened. No, no...
"She can't do this again!" Zuko, shouting, angry, his voice not calm and rolling. Barely twenty year old Zuko.
The world still does not come into focus. It looks like the surrealist paintings Azula never had a taste for, and she jumps over a bench and watches all of the people fading around her, the ashes.
Headache. Horrible headache. Azula is standing in the pier, right by where she just plunged right out of this future and into an equally enigmatic past. She stares at the building that is the alleyway she ran into.
Someone grabs her hand. Azula turns. Ty Lee.
"Did you...?" Of course not. Oh, of course not.
Azula does not quite like what she just experienced.
"Why did you just take off?" Ty Lee very quietly asks. "You're not trying to escape, are you?"
To that, Azula just opens her mouth. "You are trapping me. This is a ruse, isn't it?"
Azula's heart pounds, and she is fairly certain she cannot breathe.
"No," Ty Lee says, staring at Azula. "I just meant that you are in the state of mind of someone who had been imprisoned for a long time. But you're free now, even if you don't remember it. You're an adult now, so enjoy this candy and I'll take you back to the palace."
Azula looks around and every pedestrian has a relatively clear face. Faces staring at her.
When Azula looks up at the moon, she sees it is the same. Sun and moon, the same.
Everything else, both different and unstable.
[X]
Azula wakes alone.
She wakes differently in this world. Her mattress is comfortable, her eyes slowly open instead of frantically looking for a way out. But she still wakes up dead, like she always does. Azula can see the sun pouring through the window, but it no longer gives her a sense of security.
Her nightmares were horrible and inexplicable last night. She cannot remember them, but her body is drenched in sweat and she still feels her heart pounding. The relief of opening her eyes, even after her downfall, was a small comfort. But now she feels as if she is just leaving one nightmare and waking up in another.
Being trapped in another life is even harder than being caught in the spikes of a trap.
Sore and sleepy, she languishes in bed for a while, realizing just how much she has missed this room. Even if it has changed, it still has some of the same scuffs, the same little burns or her name etched into the wall beneath pain that could not quite cover it.
Still, if her mind was going to place her into another world, why did it put her into one that sucks just as much as the one she used to inhabit?
Azula dreams of a world where she is Fire Lord, or where everything just worked out, or maybe she just settled. But it would be more plausible to hope for a world in which it only rains champagne and the sun never sets.
Someone knocks on the door and Azula shoots up in a flicker of panic, her hand ablaze before she realizes herself and manages to calm down.
"Are you...?" Zuko.
"Just come in," Azula says sharply, her heart racing in uneven, rapid fits and starts.
Zuko strides into the room and Azula leans back, one of her knees up. It usually would be a position of submission or comfort; I know you won't kill me or lock me in an asylum again. But, in the case, it is a position of calm superiority and fearlessness; I know you won't kill me or lock me in an asylum again.
"So, we're leaving this afternoon," he announces, watching her warily, and Azula thinks his tone would be calm, but it has traces of nerves woven into it. "Aang and Katara and their kids are coming. Toph gave a very cryptic and noncommittal response, so maybe or maybe not. And Uncle, obviously, but that's it. No mother or anybody else."
Azula does not know what she is supposed to say to that. She thinks that this situation could not be any worse, but there is no protesting. Her every bone hurts and aches as if she has the flu, and she desperately wants to just run.
But running will not do her much good, save for a last resort. She never manages to run, somehow, because there has never been a place for her to go.
She remembers an oddly open conversation with her alleged wife.
I didn't run away from home, I was running towards home, Ty Lee said and Azula had no clue what it meant.
Azula still does not, but it sounds pretty these days.
"Do I have to pack or something?" Azula asks coldly, resigning to her fate. She cannot believe that she would ever tolerate those people, but Azula does suppose her mother could have been there, which likely would have been a thousand times worse.
"Yeah. Whoever you want can help you. Or you can figure it out, or something, but I don't think you've ever packed yourself before," Zuko says, scratching his cheekbone, and Azula just shrugs.
"The only person I will interact with is Mai," Azula states assertively, and she wonders how she wound up saying that. It is the absolute last thing she ever imagined coming out of her mouth after the Boiling Rock, but her words do not feel like her own in this plane of reality she inhabits.
Zuko takes a deep breath and Azula again fails to properly analyze him. It aggravates her to the core.
"I'll ask her to come by after she finishes. Or wakes up for that matter," Zuko says casually before leaving the room with another word.
Azula frowns, curling her toes beneath the silky blankets. She can barely remember what it felt like to actually be comfortable and she runs her fingers through the sheets as well. Her bed is a pleasure, when she is not sharing it with her worst enemy. In the safety of her bed, her old life of anguish is miles away, year behind her, yet somehow she is so unhappy with where she is.
Princess Azula has lucked out on at least one thing; packing for the vacation means rifling through every drawer and winnowing out the traces of her existence. In fact, she is quite perturbed by the fact that perhaps she does not even exist.
She has already explored the closet for clothes and examined all of the bottles in the bathroom, but none of that was very revelatory.
Now she has the perfect opportunity to lose herself within the potential clues that forgotten items could give her. At least until Mai shows up, but Mai seems to not give a single fuck, as usual, so Azula thinks that will not pose much of a problem.
Azula waits until Zuko's footsteps fade into silence, and then drags herself out of the cozy bed. She hates leaving it, but she is filled with excitement in anticipation of rooting up this room and finding anything that could help her navigate this world... and then escape it.
First she has to locate some kind of suitcase. She stares blankly at the precipice of the abyss that is her closet, before checking outside of the door. Zuko left it before running. He may be mature and calm these days but he will always be a coward.
She seizes it and tosses it on the bed, quite pleased with the strength in her body. It feels uneven and strange; her balance is completely off and her tests of her bending have been minimal and inconclusive. There are few words to truly explain being in someone else's body, but recognizing it as your own at the same time. Azula is still not certain just what her capabilities are, and not used to the weight of things in her hands, or the way her legs move when she runs her toes along the smooth sheets of her bed.
Azula starts with clothes. She is not sure at what moment Mai will walk in, and while the princess is uncertain if this world is real or not, she does know that she should not do anything remotely suspicious.
She suddenly realizes that she has no idea how to pack. Never has she done it for herself, and it is odd to her. Well, she needs some shirts maybe pants, dresses? A bra, probably. Mmm.
Ugh. Azula just tosses everything that looks as if it will fit into the suitcases and decides someone else will carry it if it is too heavy.
Now, she begins to pry more. It feels kind of like snooping around in another person's room, despite it being her own. Azula is invading the privacy of a Princess Azula who may or may not exist, and it is odd.
Azula once was told by a very ambitious day planner that the human mind saw their future self as a different person, and therefore could not understand how their actions would bite them tomorrow. It was aggravating, and she assumed it was some kind of myth to make young girls stick to schedules. But right now, it seems fairly true.
Pictures are the easiest thing to find. Azula's desk is far different from how she left it, but she had a long enough absence that it would be strange even in the reality she believes exists.
There are a few portraits. A couple sketches that Azula actually recalls. That is definitely the older child, with Azula and Ty Lee. The portrait is flattering, but not evidence enough. Her mind could construct a picture. Anyone could forge it. And who knows what the spirits could design?
All the same, it means that she has an established past in this life, whether or not it is true or not. That will make the temporary transition easier.
Her hands briefly rest on one that she likes. But then it becomes very uncomfortable to her. Because while she is portrayed beautifully by the art itself, she is detached, cold and has her eyes averted, her lips parted seductively, while her alleged wife smiles faintly and holds a content baby.
Azula decides she hates the pictures, until she stumbles across some that are definitely not of her supposed family.
They all consist of weird, distorted art, sketched very quickly with little attention to detail, but detailed all the same. Azula recognizes them, is the problem. Not in a solidified way, but in the way you see a person on the street and they look slightly familiar, but you do not have the slightest idea who they remind you of.
Azula starts flipping through them, and finds some that are vibrantly colored in. Notes in margins that make very little sense to her. This is a very private book of crumpled parchment and dried black ink, and she thinks it might belong to her.
That assumption is confirmed when she flips to a page that she could not miss.
It is from her recurring nightmares. She closes it, unsettled. But then she tries to be brave and keep scanning through it, paying more attention to the notes. Just more pictures, a few that Azula recognizes well, others that are odd, a few that actually seem sweet since Azula can recognize the vague portrait from the curl of her lips and the flow of her hair.
That one ends and Azula begins rummaging through the desk for more. More. She feels as if she is dying of thirst and has been given a mocking single drop of water. Her hands brush against a set of expensive pens and ink, and she contemplates seeing if she can still draw like that now, but she pushes it aside and keeps digging for answers.
At last, she sees it, a journal, and she flips it open to the first page. There is a good deal of writing but none of it makes very sense.
Then there is a knock on the door, and Azula quickly picks up the book resting on top of it. A wedding album. How ridiculous. But it does disguise what she was doing as Mai walks in.
The Fire Lady examines Azula's suitcases and sighs. "You have no idea how to pack, do you?"
And Azula "helps" her. Mostly by lingering nearby and offering uninvited orders.
At last, Azula looks up at Mai and decides to say something worth saying.
"You know why I have trouble believing this is real?" Azula asks and Mai glances at her and shrugs before going back to the suitcase. "Because supposedly we're all so happy."
Mai hesitates. "That's a good thing, though."
"No." Azula shakes her head. "I can imagine perhaps after over a decade that the world stabilize, and balance would happen because of the Avatar, and maybe even Zuko would be able to balance himself better with practice." She has to inhale sharply after the compliment of Zuko; it makes her worry if this world is getting to her. "But there is a particular kind of suffering that should be present but isn't."
"What?" Mai actually seems curious, but Azula might be miscalculating.
At that thought, her fingers clench to punch Mai in the face for no reason, but she collects herself to avoid prison.
"Families have things they pass down as gifts to their children. Traditions, jewelry, wedding dresses and lullabies. Well, our family bequeaths pain on each other generation after generation as our family heirloom."
Mai looks at her for a long time, or perhaps a short time, Azula feels quite shaken by what she has admitted aloud. It is a thought she has perpetually had, the reason she hated Zuko for being so loved by the only people who managed to avoid the pain... at least for a little while.
"You might be surprised," Mai says quietly, and she looks as if she is saying too much. "You're smart. You should know that when you're in this screwed up state, everybody is going to tip-toe around you and show you that the fire-lilies are redder on this side."
Azula contemplates that for a moment. "So I just have to pry us open and watch the fireworks?"
"Something like that," Mai says, and Azula is genuinely uncertain if she is being sarcastic or earnest. "I packed your stupid bag. Now go do something actually useful."
The princess hesitates as Mai locks the suitcase without another word and leaves.
Such melodramatic behavior for a dispassionate bitch.
[X]
Azula's mind perpetually dances with questions that she does not want to ask.
They simmer within her as she sits out of sight on the boat, watching the woman deep in conversation with Zuko. At first, it looked flirtatious and Azula kind of wanted to scream, regardless of her putting any feelings behind her. Yet, it is not flirty. It looks like family speaking to family and that somehow unsettles Azula more than it would if Ty Lee were setting her hand on his arm or batting her eyelashes subtly.
That was how Ty Lee acted with Azula, and Azula had never exactly had friends other than Mai before. Mai was not the type of girl who did that kind of thing, but Princess Azula was very well aware of the fact that sometimes girls like Ty Lee just did that.
So it definitely took more than it should have for Azula to realize that her interest was reciprocated. More than reciprocated, maybe. But it ended, and it ended for good reason.
Somehow, though, Azula and Ty Lee have spent what seems like an eternity to a sixteen year old Azula together. And so, she cannot help but wonder how they fell in love.
To know nothing about that is somehow much more unsettling than the fact that she is some kind of pet to Zuko. She kind of wonders if it was forced, or who asked out who. Azula has nothing, not a single image except for Ty Lee keeping trying to hold Azula's hand on their one and only real date, and Azula would not let her.
Was that a regret? No, no, of course not.
But, honestly, Azula feels like whatever she had with Ty Lee was once upon a dream. Despite the fact that Azula knows her inside and out, none of that makes sense anymore. This Ty Lee is fierce and confident, and this Ty Lee somehow made some kind of pretty, peaceful life with her princess.
She wonders if Ty Lee ever got her to hold hands. The image of that in her mind is laughable, but it must have happened at some point. She wonders if it was slow and tentative, or if it just happened and they collided like the ocean against the cliffs.
That distracts Azula for a good deal of time, having a variety of visions that are fun to think about, but make no sense. About Ty Lee waiting so impatiently for Azula to finish speeches she wrote for her brother, or maybe the curl of her lip when she concentrates, or perhaps they wound up lost in a flooded canyon like that boy and girl in the book they loved when they were young. They used to play pretend about that when they were young...
"Azula," says a high pretty voice and when Azula blinks several times, clearing her vision, she realizes that she is most distinctly not on the horrible boat road to Ember Island.
She is in a room she does not recognize, filled with people, somewhat faceless, incredibly distorted. They are the warped people that Azula saw when this reality flickered away and she became trapped between it and another back at the pier.
"Azula. Azula," demands Ty Lee and Azula quickly looks up. Everything is multicolored here, yet somehow monochrome.
"W-what?" Azula suddenly realizes the perfect clarity of this world.
The waves have faded to very gentle and classical music, the wind into the buzzing whispers of partygoers, and the rocking of the ship is the swaying. How the dancers around them sway. And Ty Lee is holding out her hand expectantly.
Azula does not even consider not taking her hand. She does not feel in control of her body and she is horrified by it. Ty Lee leads this dance and Azula cannot fathom why she is in this position right now. They are younger, and Azula has no idea why the blue, green, red and yellow clash so fiercely in this packed ballroom of faceless people dancing and talking.
"You look a little queasy," Ty Lee says very softly, and she sounds like herself. She doesn't sound like the emotional and oddly angry woman Azula has two kids with.
"I'm fine," Azula says and the words do not feel like her own.
Is she just acting out a scripted scene? Is she in some kind of time loop? She does not understand and she hates it. Princess Azula brought down the walls of Ba Sing Se, but now she feels impossibly weak.
"If you're sure," Ty Lee says warmly.
"You should be the queasy one," Azula responds coldly, but her voice is too kind. Much kinder than Ty Lee deserves.
"I know," Ty Lee replies, and her smile is not charming but charmed. "Are you nervous about this? That would be so adorable if you were."
Ty Lee's eyes glimmer. Azula has no idea what she is nervous about, but she has the sudden, lurching sensation inside of her that maybe she is stuck in this life now, and perhaps she should keep her mouth shut about the fact that she is certain that she is dreaming.
So she lets herself be led. It is odd to Azula, but she does not know this dance, and she does not know this world, and so she just tries to maintain herself as cool, cold and detached. Ty Lee swirls and they sway and spin around a thousand stars.
Azula steps away very gently, uncertain what happens now, or where she is going to next.
She waits breathlessly for this dream to end, but it does not. Ty Lee looks at her, seeming quite confused. Princess Azula turns and looks for an exit, but the walls have sealed around her. Her heart pounds and she wants to scream, or cry or start a fire.
But she keeps looking for a door. There is none.
Suddenly, Ty Lee seizes her arm. "Do you want to get out of here?"
"Yes," Azula says earnestly, not bothering to hide her relief.
And there, in front of them, is a door, an exit.
Azula breathes in and inhales the scent of saltwater and the lemon cleaning mixture.
"Kinda creepy, huh? You staring like that," Ty Lee says, her lips contorting into a smile.
Azula sets her hand on the side of her head. She has not quite adjusted to this yet. It felt like the sudden glitch in time she felt on the pier, but this one made so much less sense, and the transition was disturbingly smooth.
"I just have a headache. I wasn't looking at you," Azula says crisply, and she stands up.
Her legs wobble, and Ty Lee catches her. Azula's cheeks flush with embarrassment, and she breaks away from her supposed wife as quickly as she can to go lie down in the darkness within the boat.
It was not entirely a lie. Azula's head is splitting in half, and nothing can abet the flow of pain.
She lies back and takes deep breaths.
They are almost to Ember Island, and there, Azula will learn more of this life.
Or at least hide while everyone has fun on their vacation and forgets about her pathetic existence.
[X]
Ember Island is frozen in time, as it always has been.
But, alas, this world still feels different in way that Azula cannot quite fathom. Her skin prickles whenever she sees signs or shops that she recognizes, because perhaps the words are freshly painted or the curtains a slightly different shade, and it is uncanny.
"Do you want to tell them about your...?" Zuko asks, squinting at his sister.
Azula rolls her eyes. "Yes, I am so excited to tell all of your little friends about how I was just drowning and now have woken up as some kind of weak and pathetic mother of two with the suspicion that there was Spirit World interference."
Zuko's hopeful expression fades.
"Well, it's your secret, not ours," he says and she makes a face like she is just bitten into something dreadfully bitter. "I'm just... It took us a really long time to become friends ─ okay, not quite friends ─ but I do love you and I hope you can ─"
"Stomach this appalling display of submission from the Fire Lord?"
Zuko just stares at her for a moment before walking away. Not that she cares. The only way Azula ever could actually get along with Zuko is if she was playing him somehow. And Azula will not accept any other answer, because the thought of her actually making amends with him is terrifying.
Azula is watching Ty Lee again as they walk up the slippery, sandy steps into the Summer Palace. Thankfully, none of their "family" members have arrived yet, and Azula can slowly take in this house, and how it has changed even more than the palace.
A slow sensation washes over her. This is real, isn't it? She could still be in some magic trap but this isn't a dream. She rests her hand on the wall, on the slightly lighter paint where a frame or tapestry once hung. Azula tried to ignore this knowledge of the changes; she attempted to brush it aside until she could plan a way to escape.
But maybe there is no escaping. Maybe this is it. Her former time capsule from childhood is alterated and refurbished beyond recognition. Zuko removed any war relics and replaced with what the new Fire Lord and the enemy prefers. New but weathered and old paint renders most of it unrecognizable, the furniture either brand new or reupholstered.
No.
No, Azula is not like this house. She cannot be. That is too ridiculously metaphorical and a stupid palace can be changed in a month of work from contractors. A tiger-monkey cannot change its stripes the way walls can be repainted.
But, then again... her body is significantly different after twelve years. Her mind snapped in less than twelve weeks. It is so possible, even if it seems absurd.
Someone touches her arm, and Azula notices how ridiculous she must look. But she cannot summon a snarky response; Zuko's one is throwing a fit about forgetting something anyway. Ty Lee.
"Why are you touching me?" Azula asks sharply and it does not come out as intimidating as she wants it to.
"So you don't fly away," Ty Lee says very quietly. Her eyes rest on Azula for a moment as if she is expecting a response. But she clears her throat as Azula gazes at her with her lips in a snarl. "I'm sorry about last night. I mean, no, you should be the sorry one, but I didn't help at all, and I should be... the adult in this situation." She grimaces at that.
"Well, yes, it was certainly the worst night we ever spent together." Azula pauses. "Except for perhaps when you made me adapt to sleeping with the lights on and then suddenly needed to sleep with them off."
Ty Lee is laughing as Azula glares. It wasn't a joke.
"You were scared of the dark," Ty Lee whispers and Azula just turns away huffily. "There are still some things here that didn't change. If that's what's bothering you."
Azula nods, uncertain what to say. Ty Lee might be luring her away to murder her, but Azula decides to take her chances. They walk in silence at first, before Ty Lee speaks, startling her alleged wife.
"I was scared. I've been scared. I don't like this idea, the idea of this, the idea of you being, uhm, just you know," Ty Lee stammers and Azula finds so much questionable in her words despite keeping her lips sealed. Everyone sounds more nervous than they should be.
Or perhaps they actually do care about Azula.
No. They are definitely using her or tricking her and it would be too hopeful and naive to think they care about her. Azula refuses to get hurt by thinking that way.
"You should be scared," Azula says and the words don't quite feel right in her mouth.
"I really do want to try," Ty Lee says and Azula thinks she might be telling the truth.
But she believed Ty Lee before and was wrong.
They reach a locked door and Ty Lee tugs on it. Again. Again. Again.
Ty Lee glances at Azula, as if expecting help, but the princess has no desire to offer it. At last, Ty Lee gives up and sighs.
"It's... maybe Zuko has a key somewhere. I don't know why he locked it up." She shrugs and Azula simply stares.
"I'm going to take a nap, and I do not want to be disturbed even if there is a tsunami hurtling towards us." Azula moves to walk away but when Ty Lee's hand twitches to grab her, she rolls her eyes and turns around. "Do you remember a..." and then Azula realizes how vague her understanding of the vision was. She changes her mind and strides away before Ty Lee can ask a single question.
She swings open doors until she finds one with an actual bed in it, and promptly locks herself in.
Locked up, just like the rest of the relics.
[X]
Princess Azula wakes from her very long and nightmare-ridden nap after hearing the loudest, most obnoxious laughter in the history of time. Ugh. And out there is a gathering of jerks who all look so different that it is strangely more shocking than Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee were.
Perhaps Azula has just memorized their faces, their mannerisms, and so the abrupt change was less, well, abrupt.
Azula is not sure how she will be able to keep her state secret. A single question or remark could knock her down. And she feels as if there is something so questionable about hiding it, that... perhaps there is not Spirit World magic. Perhaps this is all some disgusting ploy and Azula keeps leaning more and more towards that every day.
She creeps forward just a little bit. They all look so perfect. Azula does not know why their laughter feels like being stabbed in the gut repeatedly, but she must end it.
And so, without revealing much, she leans against the doorway.
"I said no disturbances. So, unless you have something so monumentally funny that it is worth waking me up, everyone be silent or go outside where barking animals belong."
Well, no one says anything, staring, wide-eyed as Azula waits for a heartbeat and goes to find somewhere more isolated to sleep.
Sleep is good. Sleep is the same in every life.
Azula never thought she would love her nightmares so much.
[X]
Azula is coerced into reclining on the stone porch. She hates being in the shade, but her migraines which are kind of real and kind of not much like this life, excuse her from having to interact with people who everyone insists are her friends.
Or at least not her enemies.
Mai is in the shade as well, and Azula never thought she would be grateful for Mai so much.
"I used to really want you to die in a horrible, graphic way," Azula says, glancing over at her alleged sister-in-law.
"Thanks." Mai still does not open her eyes.
"But I've come to appreciate you. You're the only person who doesn't care enough to try to help me. It's refreshing." Azula lies back down, her hands clasped and resting on her navel.
There, spirits, have I learned my lesson now?
Out by the water, Zuko's one and one of Azula's are playing with the Avatar's girl-child and the Avatar's boy-child is bothering Toph. Azula can somewhat bear her, because she just muttered something about migraines being for the pathetic and expecting more from Princess Trustworthy, while even the horrible water whore offered her things.
I could heal you, she says. Ha. Ha. Ha.
I could burn you alive but I am choosing not to and therefore I am a better person than you... Azula does not say.
"Where's my other one? Second Daughter," Azula asks and Mai shrugs.
Well, speak of a wildfire, there she is, grabbing Azula's hand. She is damp with ocean and sand, but does not seem to care. Ick.
"I thought you couldn't go in the sun or something... uh...?" Azula cocks an eyebrow in distaste.
"You know her name, Azula," Mai mutters and the princess sighs.
"Yes, Kazumi, why are you sandy and wet?"
"Bumi took me," the girl says matter-of-factly, and then clutches Azula's hand harder. "But I think mama knows so pretend I was here."
Azula glances at her and reluctantly clasps her hands around the smaller ones.
She thought she had nothing to lose, until that screeching and halting and blending of worlds starts and Azula is powerless to stop it.
It happens for the third time, but this one somehow hurts more. The headache just makes her want to get down on her knees and shriek, but she is frozen, in another's body that looks and feels like hers or perhaps it has more scars and has been touched more gently or houses a soul people like better.
More is blurry now than just faces, and Azula wonders briefly if it is the headache, or because this is not real.
Laughing. Ty Lee is laughing and Azula looks down at the little hand in hers that is most definitely a small child that looks like a little her and Ty Lee is in front of them and laughing so hard.
"She won't let go," Azula says and she doesn't think the words are her own. "Why?"
"Because I never do," Ty Lee replies, her shoulders still shaking. "She's lucky to get a fragment of your attention."
Silence. Ty Lee has said something awful but Azula does not quite know what it is.
And Ty Lee says, "I'm sorry. I didn't think it would come out that way."
The rather unnoticed child tugs on Azula's arm and she just falls.
She opens her eyes and gasps because she has realized how strange the words on her lips feel and that maybe this world is as fake as the ones she keeps stumbling through. But then where is she? Where is she? Where is she if she is not here, or running from soldiers, or dancing in a ballroom or in a sweet family moment. Where is she?
"You're right here," says a distinct voice. Uncle.
He is half-guiding, half-carrying her inside and helping her onto the chaise lounge. She did not know that she was speaking aloud, and she is filled with humiliation from passing out like that.
She wants to make a biting remark of some sort to redeem herself, but she is at a complete loss for words.
"No one seems very worried about me," Azula says coldly, glancing at everyone outside.
"This is not an uncommon occurrence for you," Iroh says and Azula squints at him. And then he hastily tries to make up for it, as everyone talking to a crazy person does with, "Have you been drinking enough water? It is very hot."
There is a part of her, something animalistic, that sees the weak and annoying elder and wants to rip his throat out with her teeth. It is a very odd feeling. But stranger yet, is the fact that, of all of the people here, Azula is most relieved to be stuck with Iroh... making her tea.
"What isn't a common occurrence?" Azula asks bitterly, not comprehending at all what he means. Then Azula is struck by something very sudden and abrupt. "You went into the Spirit World, didn't you? To look for... It was just a rumor, but..."
Iroh stands up, spilling a few tea leaves onto the sandy, mud streaked floor. It would be a sad moment, if he were not suddenly focused on her.
"Why do you ask?" Iroh inquires and Azula feels her heart flutter. He knows something.
Or Azula might just be going crazy, because Iroh is a total loon and listening to him would be preposterous. On the other hand, seeing as he is old and filled with the type of wisdom that just makes people not as gullible as Zuko roll their eyes (and Azula has never met a person more gullible than Zuko).
"I think I was brought back from the dead," Azula says and then grimaces from the regret. "Please forget that. I'm not crazy, okay? I'm not... If the last thing you remembered was drowning in spirit water..."
Iroh stares at her for a long time, as if not sure what to believe. His body tenses so much when Azula says dead, and she would like to think he is just uncomfortable about Lu Ten, but his eyes keep flickering to the happy family outside.
Azula...
Did she murder someone? That feels so possible, but Azula is not treated like a murderer...
"I understand," he says quite earnestly and Azula is not sure what to make of it. "No matter what really happened, and I will not discount that there could have been spirit interference, you have lost over a decade. It is disorienting, I am certain."
"Zuko said that when I first came home, I didn't think the world I was in was real."
Iroh nods, his eyes glittering with nerves. Agni he is readable for someone in their family.
"And what does that mean?"
Azula hesitates. "I don't know."
She doesn't want to know.
Maybe she is looking for answers were there are no answers.
Or worse... looking for answers that she does not want to hear.
A/N: Chapter Four hasn't been removed; the content is in this chapter. I've been revising this story for pacing issues, etc, and so chapters have been condensed and streamlined for clarity, which made them fall as three instead of four. All of Chapter Four's content is in here, and a brand new chapter is coming soon.