BLOOD
Kiyi, the newest addition to the local girl gang, returns to Republic City clinging to Ty Lee and Azula. Why she chose the two of them, none could say but the shell-shocked and barely verbal toddler. And she was about as likely to talk as a murderer on death row.
"Who's this sweet little—" begins Suki before Kiyi makes a sound like an angry cat and wraps herself around Azula's legs. The elder girl's golden eyes flash wide in uncomfortable shock. She hates children. She hates this entire situation.
A pregnant Jin steps away from Zuko and starts to approach but Azula stands rather protectively in front of Kiyi.
"I believe the child wants all of you to back the fuck off," Azula snarls. Ty Lee almost swoons; this could honestly not be more attractive. Just couldn't be. Protective Azula is a hot Azula, in Ty Lee's personal very biased opinion.
"Oh," Suki replies, awkwardly clearing her throat. "She's not bitten, right?"
"As far as I know, no. But she will observe proper quarantine procedures."
"We can find someone to take her in."
"She will be staying with us."
Suki appears irked that Azula keeps ordering her around, but this does not seem like a battle worth fighting.
She watches as Azula and Ty Lee take Kiyi to quarantine, the little girl between them, holding one hand each.
As the girl skips, Katara and Mai exchange a glance that says it all.
This should be interesting.
[X]
Mai and Katara are out on watch. Ty Lee is asleep, as far as Azula can tell. And so she sighs and relents when the little child cries and begs for a lullaby.
"Please, please, please…" Kiyi whimpers.
"I… I am not your mother. You are not my blood. I…" Azula wants to wake Ty Lee, but she also does not want to ever ask for help, especially from someone as lowly and airheaded as her girlfriend. "I have very little desire to comfort anyone. I am about as warm hearted as a zombie who just took an ice path."
"I miss…" Kiyi just sinks into the bed.
Azula sighs. She leans down close to the girl so that no one can overhear, and softly sings, "Leaves from the vine / falling so slow / like fragile tiny shells drifting in the foam / little soldier boy / come marching home / brave soldier boy / come marching…" Azula stops when the little child falls asleep.
Ty Lee smiles in the darkness, her eyes glittering in the dull moonlight as she gazes at her girlfriend.
She watches, listens.
But she will never tell.
[X]
The girl gang plus Suki and Sokka prepare to dive back into Azula, Mai and Ty Lee's hometown. They need to examine the freakish establishment there in case it poses a threat to the community.
Katara gazes forward, looking somewhere far away.
"Are you having a seizure?" Mai dryly asks, sitting down on the bench beside her and balancing her augmented baseball bat between her knees.
"We're going out again. I don't think it's going to be pretty, judging from what we saw last week."
"It's never pretty." Mai shrugs.
Katara exhales a deep, wounded sigh.
"Sometimes I just stare at the wall around the city. Like we built a prison to keep us safe, y'know? I get this… I get this urge to go to the beach and build sandcastles or just climb a hill to look at the view. But we're… not allowed because it serves no purpose to the base," says Katara.
The silence is dark, darker than any the girl gang has felt in a long time.
But it turns into Azula cackling and Ty Lee giggling as Sokka walks into the room with his weapons in hand and his runner outfit on. His lightly armored denim jacket, denim shirt and jeans.
Suki coughs, trying not to snort.
Katara is the only one who manages to catch her breath and confront her big brother.
"Sokka, what on Earth is that train wreck of an outfit?" demands Katara, trying her best not to burst into hysterical laughter.
"It's protective gear! Zombies can't bite through denim!" her brother indignantly snaps. "This is the apocalypse, not some girly fashion show!"
Mai wryly comments, "Not even the apocalypse can make me wear double denim."
Sokka scowls and Suki kisses his cheek, ending the discussion.
"Okay, let's raise the gates," declares Suki to Aang. He nods and hustles into the radio control room.
The girls, Sokka and Suki walk down the stairs and head to the only entrance into the city.
Suki hands out headsets, which they usually only use for runs close to home.
She says, "We're equipped with headsets to keep us in contact with Republic City."
"I thought it was out of range," says Katara, taking her headset and examining it closely.
"Sokka made some tweaks. I don't know if it will hold up, but I hope it will."
"Encouraging," remarks Katara as everyone clamps their headset to their ears. On a mission likely to end in a battle, this is not the worst thing that they could be equipped with.
Aang's voice crackles into the headsets, "I agree with Katara. This definitely feels like how horror movies start."
"The dead have risen from the grave," comments Katara. "We're already in a horror movie."
"Good point." He laughs a little too hard and for a little too long. The poor boy could never hide his crush on Katara well, but she was with Mai, and they showed no sign of breaking up any time soon. Aang could at least respect the relationship. He was a decent guy like that.
They headed out in the direction of Azula's hometown.
She tried not to think about what she lost there.
[X]
Azula remembers going on a haunted hayride with Mai and Ty Lee, back when selecting Halloween costumes was such a significant dilemma. Those days seem hazy and amber tinted, like they come from a different world. Beneath the full moon, Azula, Mai and Ty Lee sat together on a carriage and laughed, and Azula of course complained about the mud and subpar conditions. It was not anywhere close to the limousines and fancy cars she grew up on.
A man in a zombie costume jumped out.
Ty Lee punched him in the face on impulse.
Mai and Azula never let her forget it.
Maybe it means something these days. Maybe it doesn't.
But it's a memory Azula cannot stop thinking about as they trek towards the town. She remembers how life was. How zombies were just people in make-up, things of stupid movies Azula hated watching. She always preferred the sexiness of vampires and the enticing psychopathy of slashers.
"Is it painful going back here?" Katara asks. "I… I can get why it might be. Our families…"
"Yes. We all have had to kill at least one person of our own blood. I had to kill my father. I shot him between the eyes. He told me not to hesitate or cry. He told me not to make him ashamed of me in his final moments. But it was his own overconfidence that got him bitten in the first place. He did… he did always seem invincible to me."
"My dad had to kill my mom," whispers Katara. "He tried to hide it from us but I watched from the other room."
"I killed my parents and I didn't give a fuck," says Mai and Katara's eyes widen.
"You don't mean that," Katara snaps.
"Of course I mean it. They never meant much to me."
"They were your flesh and blood!"
"Yeah, but they weren't anything more than that."
"We'll make new families," chirps Ty Lee, neglecting to speak of the chaos in her home as sister killed sister, the paranoia when her youngest sister was bitten. She does not want to talk about such dark things. "Why not? Zuko and Jin are doing it. I bet we'll all have new families real soon."
Ty Lee winks at Azula.
Azula looks away.
And now Ty Lee is confused yet again about where she stands in Azula's eyes.
"Soon is a strong word," says Azula. "It takes time for someone to earn enough of my respect that I would wed them or have children with them."
"I'd put money on Sokka and Suki getting pregnant next," says Mai, looking at the two leading the group, side by side, the chemistry between them painfully obvious. They always have been the mom and dad of Republic City.
"Zombie!" Ty Lee exclaims, taking two steps forward and braining it with her bat. Azula licks her lips, a tingling sensation flooding through her. But she forces it away and returns to her cold, noncommittal, unloving self.
Azula pivots and shoots the second one creeping up on them.
After that, they keep striding forward as a group, keeping an eye out for any other attackers.
A/N: This chapter took ages to get out because it was extremely long. I ended up having to cut it in half and on Tuesday I'll post the second half of it, when the local girl gang plus Sokka and Suki confront a crazed murder cult and reveal some dramatic secrets.
