You wouldn't believe how hard it was to get this uploaded! First off I have no internet, which means this is up so much later than I intended (sneakily using my neighbour's while they are out, shhh) and secondly tried to access off my old computer and the 'website was unavailable' so I assumed the site was down. Try it on my new computer just for arguments sake and bam, there it is no problem at all. Technology! :/
I really don't like the first section of this piece but it seemed somehow wrong just to cut it out completely. Therefore, you have authorial permission to skip the first section :'). I also had entirely too much fun with Suki and Ty Lee. I wanted to try and write out how I thought our little acrobat would fit into the Kyoshi Warriors, and Suki I think would be a very wise and just leader.
The rest I feel slightly better about, but then "The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist had to start with" - William Faulkner.
I still don't own anything. I still make no profit.
And wishing anyone who reads author's notes a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! :)
Chapter Four:
It's Not Like You To Say Sorry
Four flags flying in unity: Fire, Earth, Air and Water. A future moving forward together.
As the rugged mountains broke to admit the first view of the palace from the east, Ty Lee could not help but giggle a little at Zuko's ostentation. She watched as the rising sun reflected off the vast red and gold artifice, making the whole building appear to smoulder before her eyes: an ember on the verge of burning out, and a spark just about to ignite.
After three-weeks patrolling some of the most remote regions in the Earth-Kingdom she was more than ready to re-embrace luxury for a spell; and the palace meant good food, warm beds and a glorious absence of responsibility. But most of all the palace meant Mai, who she missed more than words could express. And in the changes Zuko had wrought, in the day-to-day lives of all those who inhabited it, there was an air of happiness and contentment which had not been present since before the Lady Ursa disappeared.
She grinned, hopping carelessly back and forth between the razor-sharp edges of the rocks, balancing on their thin seams just like she used to do in the circus: drinking in the thrill of being one misplaced step away from certain destruction. She glanced at the rocks critically – okay, so certain destruction was a slight exaggeration, but a slip would hurt. She imagined the wind as the roar of the crowd in her ears, let it fill her up with oxygen as she readied herself for the final show-stopping stunt which would see the stands overflow with gold pieces as the audience defied her to cheat death one more time.
"Be care -!" Suki's voice carried from behind, half-shrill with panic. Then the Kyoshi leader caught herself and rolled her eyes. "Never mind."
The other Warriors took up a chant:
"She flies like a bird -"
" - Stings like a hornet-bee - "
" - And snores like a hippopotamus-bear - "
" - With a head-cold."
A chorus of fond laughter erupted and Ty Lee laughed along with her sisters, landing a perfect cartwheel on a razor-point.
It was strange, initially she had run away to join the circus out of a crisis of individuality: because she wanted to be different, to set herself apart. But being a Kyoshi Warrior automatically meant embracing a communal identity, meant being, once again, part of a matched set – and went against everything she thought she had ever known about herself. Yet neither decision felt wrong to her, neither felt like a betrayal, because both had made her happy at vastly different points in her life. And rather than fighting a war inside her, the two choices happily co-existed, as separate and united as light and dark: that she craved singularity, but realistically could never be happy alone.
The end of the war meant new ways of thinking, of bridging the distances which had opened up between the four Nations, and trying desperately not to repeat the mistakes of the past. By joining the Kyoshi Warriors she liked to consider that she was doing her part. For while the Warriors flattered themselves as Zuko's personal guard, their true loyalties extended from the furthest tip of the Fire-Nation to the most remote islands of the Earth-Kingdom, touching every town, city and village in between. Their resources eternally and equally divided, eternally and equally balanced.
The sun was just climbing into its midday arch when they finally reached the palace, and were immediately apprehended by a messenger who handed a scroll to Suki and, to Ty Lee's surprise, herself. She stared at Zuko's seal for a moment: a pair of Dao swords crossed and wreathed in fire, before slipping her thumb beneath the blob wax and beginning to read. The message was brief in the extreme, stating simply:
Azula's home. Second floor, fifth room on the left.
Yet the words stole the breath from her with the knock-down power of a punch.
Azula!
Azula was here!
Right now.
Somewhere in the palace.
She quickly scanned the second floor windows from left to right, half expecting to see the Fire-princess, in full warrior's regalia and with her trademark sardonic slash, watching over every fraction of life fall as exactly into place as she had planned it.
But the windows were cold and empty.
A second later Suki lowered her own, slightly longer, message with a hard expression.
"What is it?" One of the Warriors ventured hesitantly.
"Princess Azula." Suki paused as if the words weighed heavily on her tongue, and shifted their bulk with every forced, measured breath until they were difficult, almost impossible, to speak around. She swallowed. "Princess Azula has been released into the care and charge of her brother. Here at the palace."
A collective hiss broke through six pairs of painted lips like water escaping a damn, as the Warriors recoiled back from the name which commanded its own physical presence. Ty Lee looked between her sisters nervously, a bubble of conflict rising uncomfortably in her chest.
She knew better than most what Azula had done, but even then she couldn't view her with their disdain. She couldn't erase a decade of friendship just because – forget the consequences for a moment – Azula had made some bad decisions.
Maybe that made her foolish and naive. She didn't know.
Maybe that made her humanitarian.
What she did know, however, was that Zuko was depending on exactly that naivety or foolishness to be her driving instinct, because one thing his scroll made clear – about the only thing, actually – was that she was being summoned.
And because it was Zuko who summoned her, she also had the tacit right to refuse. If she wanted to.
Her shoulders slumped forward. For the first time since joining the Kyoshi Warriors she truly felt removed and separated from them: an imposter, a fraud, a liar. And she didn't enjoy the experience.
She thought she was through with this business choosing loyalties, choosing sides. She thought all that division had ended with the war.
"What do we do?" Carlah asked fearfully.
"Nothing," Suki answered after a time. "We do nothing. Our duties are to protect the Fire-Lord and safeguard the Fire and Earth kingdoms. Whether Azula is here or not has no bearing on that. We continue as before."
"But ..." The Warrior suppressed a shudder. "But what if we run into her?"
Suki's expression softened slightly.
"I don't think she'll be up and about for a while."
Ty Lee frowned. Azula languish around in bed all day when there were orders to give, plans to forge and a Nation to steer back from the brink of destruction? Not likely.
"And if we do have the misfortune of running into her," Suki continued sternly, "then we will treat her with the dignity and respect due to a princess of the Fire-Nation." A crease formed between her eyebrows, "Then wash the bitter taste from our mouths afterwards."
She waved her fellow Warriors on ahead of her into the palace.
Ty Lee hesitated just the fraction of a second too long, and her conflict was exposed.
When Suki caught her eye, the leader motioned her towards the fountain which stood in the middle of the court-yard. Suki's movements were slow and languid, and Ty Lee realised with a pang that it was the first time she had ever seen the Warrior show any signs of weariness.
The acrobat perched on the ledge, gazing into the water. She distantly remembered a day in the palace gardens, many years before, where Azula had set light to an apple on Mai's head, and Zuko had knocked both of them into the fountain trying to put it out. The couple had been just a lovably awkward and indiscreet even then.
That was what she missed. The four of them just being together.
"You're going to see her."
It wasn't a question or accusation. Just a mere statement of fact.
She looked over to where Suki sat beside her, hands trapped between the pressure of her knees.
"Yes." She felt the tension in her chest melt away at the admission.
"You have a very forgiving nature. Just be careful that people don't take advantage of it."
Ty Lee felt obliged to defend her friend's honour.
"Zuko would never do that," she hurried to reassure. "It was my choice to see Azula."
"I didn't mean Zuko," Suki admitted with a sad smile.
"Oh."
There wasn't really much she could say to that.
It wasn't fair. Everyone assumed Azula was bad but she wasn't. She was … hard. Just like a shell. She felt that she needed to protect herself from the world, so she made her exterior into armour, a beautiful barricade, and hid her vulnerable centre behind it.
But as hard as a shell was it was also brittle, it had flaws. And with the right force, from the right angle, it would shatter every time.
Suki shifted beside her on the ledge: an uncomfortable sacrifice.
"You know, loyalty doesn't mean giving up old friends for new ones. We protect two kingdoms, which means our hearts live in two places. Not torn or divided, but balanced."
With a sudden rush of gratitude, Ty Lee threw her arms around Suki's neck, causing the other girl to admit a small 'oof' as the air was unceremoniously knocked from her lungs. In all the weeks she had spent with them, after all they had seen and experienced together, she had never been prouder than in this moment to be a Kyoshi Warrior. It was easy to make promises of equality and understanding. It was the hardest thing in the world to fulfil them.
Ty Lee belonged to the Fire-Nation, but she also belonged to the Earth-Kingdom, because she chose to. She could maintain her friendships with Mai and Azula and her sister Warriors without fear or guilt, because she chose to. Light and dark, yin and yang, two sides to her identity.
"Thank you."
Suki nodded and stood, brushing down her uniform.
Leader. Councillor. Teenager. Friend.
"We're leaving for the West Coast tomorrow. It's up to you whether or not you want to come." She added sincerely: "Either way we'll understand."
It was a little after mid-morning when Azula awoke and immediately regretted it. The pain of her accumulated abuses hit her with the force of an Earth-bender attack, treating her to every stabbing, aching permutation it was possible to experience, simultaneously. But worse than that she actually felt awful: weak and shivery and … somehow dense? As if her body, rather than shedding three-quarters of it weight, had gained that and more in the space of one night.
When she lifted her head the word lurched sickeningly and dropped away from her, and she was forced to admit it: for the first time in living memory she felt ill.
She groaned with a mixture of fear and frustration. She did not like the feeling.
A movement in the corner of the room caught her attention and with a creeping dread she shifted her head slightly on the pillow to peer between the posts
In one of two chairs that congregated in the corner of her chamber and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Zuko shifted and sat up drowsily. His hair, loose from its top-knot, kicked out at strange angles all on one side and his creased tunic was still stained with the remnants of her blood like some macabre ink-blot painting.
It took a moment for the question to occur to her sluggish mind: had he slept there all night?
"Hey," he mumbled uncertainly, stretching the stiff muscles in his back, "are you awake?"
Well if he had it had been for his own stupidities sake … !
She caught herself.
If Zuko had stayed then it had been for her protection. It had been an act of compassion – she grimaced at the word – not insult. It meant he believed her that Ursa was a threat.
That someone was on her side again.
"I'm awake," she rasped painfully.
Evidently the screaming she'd indulged in the previous night hadn't been kind to her throat. She raised a hand instinctively to massage the area, but instead of the smooth touch of skin she felt something coarse.
She pulled her hand back in shock, blinking down at the appendage with a wavering, unfocused glare. It was swathed in some sort of white material … ?
"Zhara cleaned and bandaged your hands while you were still asleep," came Zuko's voice from somewhere beside her. When did he get there? "Luckily there was no glass, so they should heal quickly." He tried to smile but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
She groaned. She felt disorientated and heavy, as if her mind and body had been filled with cement which was slowly hardening in the heat she was radiating. Each breath that she took was a measured and precise effort that rattled in her chest, caught in her clogged throat and threatened to launch her into a brutal and protracted coughing fit that she just didn't have the energy to sustain.
A shiver of heat trickled down her spine, and with it a burgeoning sense of shame for the weakness and instability she had betrayed the previous night.
Usually she was better at controlling it. She didn't know what had slipped. Or why.
She glanced to scene of her humiliation – the palace was collecting them en mass apparently.
The empty frame was gone, the stone floor had be scrubbed of its mural, and the broken glass swept away as if nothing had ever happened. But it had. She had made it. She had set her free. They could scrub and sweep as much as they liked but they couldn't cover that up! Ursa was out there now, waiting, and it was only a matter of time.
She sensed Zuko watching her. No, scrutinizing her, with that same intrusive intensity he had demonstrated at the asylum. She had expected that. She searched for the tell-tale signs: repulsion, fear, ignominy, which she had come to view as the usual responses to her demonstrations of insanity. But, curiously, she marked none of them in him. Instead he just looked … concerned, compassionate.
And yet, strangely, that didn't turn her already delicate stomach.
"How are you feeling?" He asked finally.
She could lie to him. Exercise some of her old mendacity, force the distance which had been somewhat bridged between them back into the gaping ravine she was used to. But she didn't see any point in it now.
Maybe she needed him, even is she preferred to pretend to herself that she didn't?
Maybe he needed her?
"Awful," she replied honestly.
By now she anticipated the hand even before he lifted it to her forehead. The contact, however, still caused a knot to twist in the pit of her stomach.
"Your fever's gone up," he sighed, an edge of desperation pulling at his tone. "Wait here."
She closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow, trying to forget all the pains and protests of her body. Well damn, she thought sardonically, and she'd certainly been planning to go somewhere else.
In the bathroom which adjoined her chamber she heard the sound of running water and then his returning footsteps. Something cold and slightly rough was pressed against the back her neck and she yelped, grimacing. The world oscillated as she tried to pull away.
"Relax," Zuko soothed, steadying her and pressing the flannel to the back of her neck again.
He brushed a second across her forehead, wiping away the perspiration she was embarrassed to admit had gathered there. She submitted to his tending, when even yesterday she would have shunned it.
Why was he still here? She didn't had disgraced herself, she deserved his ignominy. Wasn't that what she had always been taught?
Yet he acted like her compliance was something golden. A reward, long strived for and finally won.
Maybe insanity was a vein running through their whole family and she just happened to be the figurehead?
She coughed weakly into her fist, the effort not even enough to clear the mucous in her throat.
"Do you think you can try something for me?" Zuko asked, his voice sounding strangely distant and distorted, as if it had to carry the whole length of a tunnel to reach her. She blinked and forced herself to focus on his face. The lurid scar was not quite so noticeable under his hair.
He didn't seem to need her agreement however, for, with one had still holding the flannel against the back of her neck, he reached across to the bedside table and retrieved a glass of water. Except, where the contents should had been clear and transparent, they were tainted with an insidious amber glow.
She drew back, feeling panic rise in her already heavy chest. Couldn't Zuko see that the water had been tampered with?! Couldn't he understand that this was all part of Ursa's plan?!
He laughed humourlessly.
"It's just water, mixed with lemon and honey. It'll help your throat, and the sugar'll give you energy."
Humph. That was exactly what Ursa would want him to think.
She crossed her arms, ignoring the pain the motion of dissent cost her.
She expected him to be impatient, a fiery temper was, after all, something they both had in common, but he disappointed her yet again. When had her brother stopped being so predictable?
Seeing her resistance he rolled his eyes and took a generous demonstrative drink. He thought they had moved past this.
She watched critically for any sign of reaction.
Suddenly his doubtful expression split into a look of surprise and he smacked his lips appreciatively.
"It actually tastes good," he admitted, offering it to her again. "I didn't think it would."
She took it grudgingly, still regarding the amber contents with undisguised suspicion.
She knew it would not stay down so she didn't see the point in trying. But Zuko was watching her imploringly, and she was beginning to feel like maybe she owed him the effort.
She raised the glass with shaking hands to her lips, taking the smallest sip she could manage.
The sharp, sweet taste burst violently across her tongue, causing her whole mouth to tingle and flood with saliva. She swallowed the liquid convulsively, anything to make the unpleasant sensation stop. But it continued to tingle as it went down, making her whole body crawl with an itch that she couldn't scratch.
When it finally hit her stomach it fell like a lead weight, and she immediately lurched to the edge of the bed with a horrible sense of inevitability. Zuko's hand caught her, and instead he lifted the bucket and placed it beneath her chin. His fingers tracing slow circles onto the top of her back, his thumb still holding the flannel in place.
She waited and waited, Agni she hated this. She hated being so weak, of not even being able to control her own body. Maybe she didn't want to be perfect any more, and maybe she realized that she didn't need to be in control of everything, but she at least wanted to be in control of that. She deserved to be, didn't she?
After a while Zuko moved the bucket away.
"No ..." she protested weakly.
"Azula you don't need it," he coaxed. "If you were going to be sick you would have been already."
What was that tone in his voice? It was almost smug, triumphant. It was grating whatever its allegiance.
Maybe then she'd make herself sick to spite him!
She shivered at the thought.
No, maybe not.
At her shiver Zuko removed the cold compress and she forced herself to bite back a moan of protest. Fire-benders were notoriously temperature sensitive, and though she was ambivalent about whether she could still identify herself as one or not, he clearly considered that she might retain the sensitivity. A fever was one thing, but if her temperature was to fall too low under his ministrations the consequences would be far worse. She guessed he must have saw something encouraging, however, because some of the tension had left his expression.
He placed a finger underneath the bottom of the glass and exerted a small upward force, a gentle reminder to drink.
For a while they sat in companionable silence as she took small, methodical sips. Though she still felt awful, the drink did help to soothe some of the rawness in her throat, and the sugar did grant her the indulgence of feeling at least half-human again. With each consecutive swallow the taste became less intense, or else she became desensitised to it. And maybe, she considered, it had been taste that her body was rebelling against rather than food as an article. Her asylum diet – when she had eaten – had consisted of water and dry bread. Nothing to excite the senses. Looking back, three months was a long time to go without flavour. And time enough to develop a sensitivity.
The mattress dipped under Zuko's weight as he sat down beside her. She shifted her legs to accommodate him, ignoring the lance of pain the movement caused her. She waited patiently as he again placed the back of his hand against her forehead.
"You're cooler," he admitted, "but the fact that your fever's so sustained is worrying."
She hummed in agreement, the sound undercut by a thick rattling in her chest. Zuko was brooding, she recognised the dark severity in his countenance, and she waited with bated breath for the moment when the damn would break and wash her precarious holding away. When he decided that all of this just wasn't something he wanted to deal with.
"Azula," he began hesitantly resolute, "I know you don't want to, but we have to talk about what happened last night."
She felt a thrill of fear. Here it came. Her episodes were not usually discussed except in a therapeutic setting, and even then with a certain amount of scorn. Why would Zuko want to talk about it? As a family they shunned introspection, and it was a little late in the day to start changing the habits of a lifetime.
"We need to find out what triggers it. And how to disarm it once it starts."
She blinked at him. That wasn't what she was expecting.
He fixed her with an earnest, vulnerable stare which absorbed her fear and reflected his back at her. Fear not only of what he had seen, but that he was inadequate to the challenge of meeting it. Fear that she would never be the person he had known again. Her own fear.
The words echoed in her mind: we need to find out what triggers it. We. Together
Even after everything she had put him through he was still trying to reach her.
It was a good act and she almost believed it.
"I think it's the silence," he continued, and she could tell he had given this considerable thought. "When you're alone you mind rises up and consumes you, because there's nothing to distract it. When you have something to focus on, even just a conversation, your calmer, it anchors you." Agni, she thought, it was like being back at the asylum again. "But I can't always be here, not any more." There was a hard frustration in Zuko's tone. "I might be in a meeting, or somewhere beyond the grounds of the palace where I can't reach you in time." His eyes shone with a momentary wild panic. "So I need to find a way to help you soothe the turmoil in your mind. I need to find a way to help you learn to be alone."
She figure out what he was planning – even if whether he knew himself – but she knew didn't like it. Not least because she had already tasted too much of solitude. And that taste did make her sick.
"I know things won't be easy, that there are shadows in here which frighten even you." He touched his fingers gently to her forehead again, a gesture with so different resonance. "But I can promise you that things will be different this time, that I can help you."
Despair rose within her like a bubble from a cesspit: full of ugliness and worldly grime.
"Help?" she croaked forlornly. "How can you possibly help me?"
Not even an institution which catered to madness had done that. She'd gone in saner than she had come out.
With a desperate conviction he took both of her hands in his, careful not to aggravate their injuries, and raised them to his face pressing them against the tight, puckered skin of his scar, which he knew she could feel even through the fabric. It was the first time he had ever formally called her attention to it. The mark, the brand, the imperfection they both had in common. Except she wore hers where it wasn't always visible to see.
"I can help you distinguish between what's real and what isn't. If you'll allow me."
Even half dazed and heavy she understood what he was really asking.
Faith.
Trust.
Too much?
"I promise I'll tell you when I see her again," she rasped.
Then, because the only thing more depressing than experiencing insanity was talking about it, and because sincerity, honesty was a confusingly new and old territory for their relationship, she forced her gravelly voice into a wry tone, and her cracked lips into a grimacing smile.
"Sorry about the mirror."
Zuko chuckled despite himself, allowing her hands to fall back on the sheets. The mirror had been a present from some hapless relation on their father's … Ozai's coronation. It's eye-offending hideousness had been shut up in this room ever since.
"Don't worry about it, accidents happen. Sometimes quite fortunately."
Suddenly Zuko glanced towards the sun's arch outside the large sash windows which dominated the left wall of her chamber and smiled. He pulled a red satin tunic out of the dresser and handed it to her.
"Put this on, there's someone here to see you."
Azula frowned but complied, wrapping herself in the colour that had always symbolised strength.
Who, besides Zuko, would be willing to see her?
Ty Lee did not trouble herself with something as banal as knocking. She burst into the room Zuko had specified as Azula's with the rapidity of a bullet fired at close range: a blur of green, a streak of white and two lines of red.
Locking onto her target sitting amongst the swathes and folds of an expansive four-poster bed, she pounced on the unsuspecting Fire-princess with a shout of 'Azula!' bowling her over with the sheer force of her embrace.
"Not so rough," came Zuko's voice from somewhere near at hand, "she's still - "
But what Azula was still Ty Lee never got to here, for at that moment she and Zuko both drew up short at the sound emanating from the fire-princess' lips.
Laughter.
Not the powerful, condescending chortle Ty Lee was familiar with. This laugh was rippling and liquid, like water warmed in the heat of the sun. It sounded nothing like Azula at all.
With mild confusion Ty Lee pulled back, all the better to survey her friend, but Azula's hands tightened into an insistent, vice-like grip that forbade her from breaking away. On reflection that really should have been her first indication that something was terribly wrong. At best Azula tolerated hugs. She definitely didn't insist upon them.
However, Ty Lee merely grinned and gushed obliviously.
"I missed you too!"
The fire-princess buried her face into the nape of Ty Lee's neck, breathing in the familiar Jasmine and wild-grass scent which clung to the acrobat like the scent of home. The tears welled and spilt from here eyes before she could muster the will to stop them, but she didn't care. She would spill a hundred more if that was what it took to make her stay.
She didn't deserve it, the forgiveness the acrobat gave so freely. But Agni she wanted it.
"You're here," she croaked out,.
"Of course I'm here!" Ty Lee rolled her eyes. Did Azula really think her new-found duties would prevent her from visiting? That demonstrated a startling lack of faith.
Suddenly something occurred to her and her face folded into a frown.
"Hey," she said with concern, "you don't sound so good. Are you sick?"
To Ty Lee's surprise Azula's grip abruptly slackened, and the fire-princess pushed away from her with a self-directed violence that she did not understand.
Leaning back against the headboard, the Azula invited Ty Lee to look at her, vulnerable and completely exposed. To see just how far she had fallen.
With slow deliberation, like water trying to penetrate rock Ty Lee looked, and felt some obscure and vital part of herself break. The bandages and prominent bones made little to no impression on her; instead what told her just how far Azula had slipped from perfect was the hair which hung loose and uncombed like a black halo around her shoulders, and the eyes whose contracted pupils gave her the contentious haunted appearence of living in a nightmare.
"What happened?" Ty Lee gasped, horrified.
Azula shook her head and turned away.
"'Zula?" the acrobat pleaded fearfully, reaching for her arm.
Azula snatched her arm back before curling into a tight, miserable self-embrace.
Hurt and confused Ty Lee turned to Zuko.
"What's going on?" she demanded finally.
He stood a small distance back from them, arms folded defensively across his chest and, with a pang, she realized suddenly just how exhausted he looked: as if he bore the whole weight of the Fire-nation on his shoulders. And while technically he did, he had never shown its strain before, not even in the early days. When he spoke too his words were heavy, and betrayed the slight sibilance of his lisp the way they always did when her was too tired to try and hide it.
"The asylum wasn't exactly fulfilling its obligations," he admitted bitterly, his hands unconsciously curling into fists and beginning to smoke. "It doesn't matter though, she'd better off here. Where people actually care about her."
It was a moment before Ty Lee understood that Zuko's words contained an implicit caution: that Azula neither wanted nor needed their pity. She needed their strength. She needed to know that they were not effected by her change, so she didn't have to feel the shame of it; that they didn't view her as different, less, so she didn't have to become it. She needed them to pick up the gauntlet and, just for a while, be the ones who pretended that everything was under control.
She nodded to show Zuko that she understood then, with an effortless vault of her body, she re-positioned herself so that she was facing Azula. The fire-princess looked up at her with liquid-gold eyes and Ty Lee knew that there would be no pretence required. Fallen, beleaguered, besieged, this was Azula. Maybe in a truer sense than she had ever seen her.
"You're still the most beautiful, smartest, most perfect girl in the world," she winked.
It took a moment, but Azula smiled.
She held out her bandaged hands and Ty Lee eased her back up into a sitting position, wrapping a supportive arm around her waist.
It was disconcertingly horrifying and yet strangely endearing to see Azula so dependent. To be at a point of crisis in her life where she would actually allow people to help her.
Nevertheless Ty Lee almost fainted in shock when she felt the unfamiliar weight of the fire-princess' head come to rest upon her shoulder. She hesitated for the fraction of a second before slowly beginning to comb her fingers through her friend's lank hair in a comforting, maternal gesture. When Azula didn't protest she settled into a rhythm.
Zuko watched them with a painful lump swelling in his throat. He understood now what Azula needed, and it wasn't only him. He had been absent from her life for three years, but in reality he had checked out long before that. He had always assumed that she didn't need him, an image she herself had promulgated, and so he had failed to understand her. But that was an oversight neither Mai or Ty Lee had made. Maybe then it was not so surprising that she responded to Ty Lee easier and more naturally than she did himself. Maybe he would just have to accept that there were people who could help her better than him.
Except she had burned so many of those bridges, and left herself without the options.
"Hey," Ty Lee said suddenly, realizing the absence in the room. "Where's Mai?"
Azula's eyes fluttered and she confessed in a strained whisper:
"Don't know … haven't seen her."
Ty Lee raised a questioning eyebrow to Zuko. The Fire-Lord held up his hands.
"It's Mai's choice. Just like it was yours."
Ty Lee huffed.
"Well it's the wrong choice."
Then, with an incredulous frown, she took in Zuko's creased tunic, the greater part of which his arms had been concealing up until now.
"Are you still in your nightwear?"
"I know, in the middle of the day," Zuko dead panned. "It's shocking."
"Why are you covered in – wait is that … blood?" Ty Lee gasped wide-eyed. "Is it some sort of political statement? Did you attend meetings like this?" She bit her lip. "Is this really the image you want to be presenting?"
"I haven't attended a meeting in four days," Zuko confessed, running a hand through his hair. " The nation's probably in rack and ruins by now. I don't know how Mai keeps heading people off."
"But you have been dressed in four days haven't you?" Ty Lee wheedled.
"Yes, Ty Lee," Zuko laughed, "I've been dressed." He glanced at Azula whose eyes were slipping closed again.
"We had a rough night. That's all."
Ty Lee rested her chin on the top of Azula's head for a moment.
"You can't do all this on your own, you know. Not even you're that good."
"Yeah well, I don't have much choice. People aren't exactly queueing at the door to help me." The slightest tone of bitterness crept into his voice.
"We'll see about that," she promised.
Suddenly a shiver coursed through Azula's body, followed by a deep, chocking wheeze which launched her into a coughing fit. Zuko quickly pressed a towel to her lips, pounding lightly on her back while Ty Lee supported her and looked on in horror. Sometime overnight the cough had become productive, and what it produced was more insidious than the spasms themselves.
She didn't have the energy to sustain it long and she collapsed back into Ty Lee's arms.
The towel came away red in Zuko's hands. He folded it over.
"That's a scary sounding cough," Ty Lee confided shakily, instinctively tightening her grip on Azula.
"I know," Zuko admitted, wiping the corner once again across Azula's lips. "Katara's coming with Aang, Sokka and Toph in two days time. I'm going to see it she'll take a look at her."
If both parties would co-operate that long.
Azula's bleary eyes focused on her brother, her face scrunching into a grimace at the metal-sharp taste of blood on her tongue. Zuko offered her the glass but she pushed it away. Then she pushed him away too, with enough force to convey insistence.
"You want me to leave?" Zuko asked, trying not to sound as hurt as he felt.
"Go … change," she panted weakly, with a long delay between the words. " Least pretend … your competent." There was little to no venom in her tone though the words were biting.
Zuko glanced at Ty Lee. Could he really leave? Did he really trust Azula to the care of anyone else after what had happened last night? Did he really trust her to the care of himself after what had happened last night?
But then this was Ty Lee.
And the truth was, he had been neglecting his duties ever since he had brought Azula home. And in the still-turbulent transition from Ozai's reign maybe that was an oversight she had every right to impress upon him. They were a kingdom with a lot of powerful enemies and they were still politically vulnerable.
He bit his lip, conflicted.
"You can go," Ty Lee told him earnestly. "She'll be fine with me."
Zuko relented, albeit unwillingly.
"Half an hour," he stipulated, "then I'll be back."
"Half an hour," she agreed, thinking that if Zuko could smooth over political tensions in that time then he was wasted on the moral plane
Azula didn't immediately respond to her brother's exit. For a while she simply sat with her eyes closed and her forehead pressed into the crook of Ty Lee's neck. The acrobat waited patiently, content to watch over her, considering her vigil penance for the circumstances which had collided and forced her to chose between her friends.
In the stillness she became aware of the faint pulsing of Azula's aura: once royal purple – the perfect balance of red, domineering heat and the blue singularity of her flame – it had faded to a tincture which she could not identify or name, because it was a shade both saturated in colour and completely devoid of it. It was the aura of someone who had lost their way. The aura of someone at odds with herself.
Slowly Ty Lee began to chase the flowing threads of her Chi, always ready to pull back if Azula found her investigation intrusive. There was something strange, a viscosity which stopped the energy moving as it should. Curiously Ty Lee perused it deeper, trying to work out what it was and where it emanated from. She found it. In the region of Azula's stomach a strange knot twisted, around which her Chi pressed but could not pass, could not flow, and therefore could not fulfil its purpose. She had never seen anything like it before. Casting a wary look at Azula, Ty Lee allowed her mind to brush against the obstruction but quickly recoiled with horror. What she touched was death and sickness and cold, made her own mind shiver.
What had happened to Azula?
After a long time, Azula's eyes blinked up at her with an expression of irritated confusion. And a bandaged hand rose slowly to wipe a smear of make-up off distastefully and reveal the soft skin beneath.
"Why?" she croaked with indignation.
Ty Lee considered it.
"I guess because I missed being part of something." She shrugged. "There was always the circus, or you. And then there just .. wasn't. In prison, Mai was so miserable and I was powerless to do anything to help her. She wouldn't talk, she wouldn't eat, she wouldn't even look at me. I tried everything but I just couldn't reach her. Not in the way you could have. I stayed by her side night and day, tried to stop her from fading right before my eyes. But when she finally ordered me to go I had no choice." Ty Lee shook her head desolately. "That was how I met them. They were training in the court-yard, seamless, united: everything I missed and everything I wanted to be part of again. You were gone and Mai was gone and I had no-one else, so I asked if I could join them, and offered to teach them Chi blocking in return. They were resistant at first, how did they know I wasn't going to attack them again, I'd done it before. But I persevered and eventually they began to trust me." Ty Lee smiled. "Things got better after that. We even managed to coax Mai out of her shell."
She sighed, glancing at Azula with a self-conscious squirm.
"I know you think I'm foolish, or maybe even a hypocrite, but I like being part of the Kyoshi Warriors. And we're not just based in the Earth-Kingdom you know, we serve the Fire-Nation too! … Azula?"
Ty Lee trailed off when she felt Azula's wrecked and broken body begin to tremble in her arms.
"Hey … " she began with concern.
"I'm sorry," Azula chocked around the void which had ripped open inside her and was now swallowing her in darkness. A distant part of her mind supplied that this was what remorse felt like. A sensation she had only ever read about and defamed as weakness.
Now she realized her mistake. Spirits make it stop, she begged, because nothing weak could ever hurt this much.
"I'm sorry … for … doing that to you. To … both of you."
"It's okay," Ty Lee hurried to assuage. "Really."
Azula shook her head vehemently.
"How can it … possibly … be okay?"
"It's okay because I forgive you. I understand." Ty Lee begged.
But the vehement denial did not cease
With the world slipping away from her, and her past treating her to a front-row seat to her own monstrous nature, Azula reverted to self-mutilating behaviour.
Her fingers rose and twisted into her hair. Winding, winding, winding, until the tension was ready to snap. Then she yanked, eliciting a satisfying yelp as clumps of black strands came away in her grip. Not content with a single strike, whose agony was localised only and begged for further indulgence, she reached up again. But Ty Lee's hands clamped firmly around her wrists, holding them down.
"Hey! Don't do that. Are you crazy?"
The complete benignity of the question, asked with no inflection or significance, disarmed Azula's violence. That was just like Ty Lee, to be so perceptive and ecumenical, and yet so oblivious and naïve.
"If your hair's bothering you I can fix it," the acrobat volunteered.
Then, releasing Azula's wrists, she swept the jagged bangs back off the fire-princes' forehead. With deft movements she weaved the strands into two symmetrical braids, drawing in only the hair which fell onto her face. The rest she left loose around Azula's shoulders.
Azula submitted to her ministrations, her limbs betraying the flaccidity of a newborn.
"There," Ty Lee announced proudly, securing the two braids together with a tie from her wrist.
She offered the fire-princes a stern look.
"You know, you do have a habit of making everything worse for yourself. You dig yourself in so deep that you leave no way to climb out again. That's a hard way to live."
She frowned.
"Azula?"
In the stillness, she felt Azula's breathing even out.
Shaking her head, she pulled the comforter up around them and leaned back into the headboard.
She held her in her arms like a child. Her leader. Her friend. The one person who had epitomised strength and stability in her life and now was cast adrift.
It was sometime later that Azula stirred to the sound of voices.
"What do you think of her? Honestly."
"I think she's strong. And that you'll get through this."
"But get through it to what?" Zuko's voice was strained, "To everything she was before? She can't be that way, Ty Lee. I need to be able to trust that when I turn my back she's not going to shoot it full of lightening, or else what was the point?" He groaned, "Everyone thinks I'm making a mistake, and what if they're right? Do I really have the right to put the whole kingdom in danger for the sake of my family? Urgh, I'm so confused!"
The sound of light footsteps and satin brushing against silk.
"Not everyone thinks you're making a mistake." There was an earnest smile in the words. "Give her a chance and she might end up surprising you. In the meantime show her what's good in the world. Make her want to be part of it."
A protracted pause.
"Will you stay? Please? She responded to you. It's the calmest I've seen her since I brought her home."
"Zuko, I ..." Ty Lee began uncertainly.
"I'm sorry," he begged heavily,"that wasn't fair of me. You have your duties, just as I have mine."
"I can't stay now," Ty Lee elucidated, "I have to keep things in balance and that means going with the Kyoshi Warriors to the West Coast. But when I get back I will. Don't give up hope, you're doing the right thing."
"Does that make up for doing the wrong thing in the first place?"
Azula felt two sets of eyes rest upon her.
"I think you already know the answer to that."
Just like to establish that this is not Ty Zula, not that I have anything against that pairing (and I think that there is more than enough ambiguous moments in the show to at least suggest it), but I'm not going there. I just view whatever relationship Ty Lee has with anyone to be deeply tactile and physical, both because she's extremely expressive about what she feels and because she has no personal boundaries. I also think this is something Azula, especially in the vulnerable state she's in now, would really respond to, and we DO see her respond to Ty Lee more personally than anyone else (In The Beach in particular). She might be tough as nails, but everyone needs love and affection.
Thank you very much for reading! As always, feel free to leave comments, questions ideas. What would you like to see. Who would you like to be brought in. I have a plan which takes me to the sixth chapter then after that only vague ideas.
