AN: Warning for a somewhat disturbing and/or heterosexual three paragraph sex scene. It's skippable or skimmable, but there for later chapter reasons (else I probably wouldn't write it).


Chapter Seven: A Reason for Living


Azula found Zuko where she expected. He was gardening even further, even more obsessively.

"So, plants never complain or talk back?" Azula's lips curled when he flinched in surprise.

"Yes," he said coldly before returning to his work.

He lost himself in it, and Azula could admire that. She could only lose herself in grand goals that she imagined would take her to the heavens. Mai lost herself in apathy and Zuko... plants.

"I'm sorry about what's coming tomorrow," Azula said softly and Zuko just shook his head.

"I've been looking around." He thought of Mai on that swing set, welcoming him to her nightmare. He thought of Ty Lee's screams that echoed through the night, as if she were being tortured all over again. "I think that there are worse things than death."

"Oh yes?" Azula crossed her arms in disbelief.

"It's worse to lose your reason for living."

And Zuko spoke no more.


Azula had been working with Ty Lee for a frustrating amount of time. It was impossible, and Azula had so little patience. She thought this would be easy. She had her claws around Ty Lee for so long that she thought she could put the pieces back together in an instant.

"No," Ty Lee murmured as she at last fell back into her bed, and refused to continue Azula's planned exercises.

The princess got onto the bed and looked down at Ty Lee. She moved to shake her shoulder and remind her why she had to keep living.

But instead, she chose to kiss.

But instead, she chose to slide up onto Ty Lee's hips.

Azula did not know how to express this in a way other than the physical. Not because Ty Lee would not understand, but because Azula could not control the thoughts plaguing her. She was straddling the exhausted but alert girl that she was meant to turn into a proper Fire Nation citizen.

Ty Lee must have been feeling pleasure, because her fingertips brushed against Azula's hips and she wanted her to move, to do something other than the torment of just desire and fear.

And so Azula kissed Ty Lee's shoulder, and swirled her tongue around where she found her most sensitive. But the response was far from as pleasurable as Ty Lee thought it would be. But Azula was slipping down, kisses, her tongue, very messy. Ty Lee did wonder if she fucked often enough to be slipping up, or if she went dry more than she would admit.

But then Azula's tongue was the sole thing that Ty Lee could feel, amongst the pain. And Azula's focus on so gently forcing her prisoner to moan and gasp and be in pleasure instead of ceaseless agony by licking and sucking helped absolve much of the guilt and fear she felt.

If Ty Lee could feel this, she could one day feel happy and bubbly, right?

Her sore fingertips, the ones that had the nails torn from them again and again and again, brushed against Azula's head, and there was a moment between them of utter affection.

Or maybe it was a lie. Ty Lee forgot all of her torment in a brief and ecstatic release.

And Azula say there for a little while, at the foot of the bed. Ty Lee fell asleep with no regard for the other person in the room, but Azula did not blame her.

Ty Lee had suffered enough, and Azula knew she was going to have to come up with more ingenuous methods to transform her ward.


"Tell me those weren't your moans," was the first thing Azula heard as she tried to glide through the palace living chambers and go to sleep. "Tell me you're not taking advantage of a girl you had tortured into insanity."

It was Mai. Sounding as if she was so exempt from ever harming anyone.

"They were hers," Azula said coolly. "I talked to ZuZu this morning."

"Oh, wow." Mai had nothing to say to that.

"I think that losing your life isn't as bad as losing your reason for living. I always have a reason. Right now it's Ty Lee. Zuko's was flowers, or something, I wasn't really paying attention; he's going as senile as Uncle. My father lives to oppress everyone in existence. And you?" Azula looked Mai up and down. "You don't even live for my little brother. Or anyone else. Or anything else."

"I don't deserve this." Mai had no idea why she was being attacked out of nowhere, save for Azula having built up nerves from Ty Lee.

Azula paused. "You don't deserve me ranting at you. But you do deserve your unhappiness if you do nothing to change it."

And Azula strode away, as Mai clenched her jaw and went to her own rooms to retire.


"Do you honestly think that my daughter can cure what amounts to a shell of a person?" Ozai asked quite skeptically. In front of his advisors, and anyone else of importance, he expressed assuredness that Azula was prepared and doing important work.

But he could doubt her to the young woman lying on the lounge across from him, just staring at the wine he offered her. She didn't like it. She thought it would be better with some sugar, but Mai never did want to voice that immaturity.

"I think that Azula will stop at absolutely nothing to get what she wants. I also think that it's Azula's fault, and she won't do Ty Lee any good until she admits that," Mai said quietly and Ozai examined her, knowing the reality of the situation.

Azula broke her, but Azula somehow thought she could put it back together. He had broken things of hers before, just to show her what could happen, and how nothing in this world was invulnerable, including her. Perhaps it was cruel, but now it was clearly a lesson she needed to learn.

Mai thought, as she lay there, about how wonderful things had been between she and Ty Lee and Azula. How they thought that their little group that had always been, would always exist, until the very end.

"Zuko's trial," Mai said before deciding that she regretted those words. But she would rather be discussing it than the task Azula had infinity to accomplish, but Zuko only had a few days for his fate to be decided upon.

"I'm not sure how it will work out," Ozai lied and Mai averted her eyes. She wanted to be more defiant, but passivity was so much easier. "But I think I would like to keep him alive. Do you want to keep him alive?"

Mai thought about it, in all honesty, for a few moments.

"Welcome to my nightmare, Prince Zuko. I hope you enjoy your stay."

"I don't care. I'm sure he moved on with the rebels. There was that girl."

"Is she still alive?" Ozai seemed much too pleased about that.

And Mai realized at that moment that he did not trust her in the slightest. Despite the misery she turned into something bearable. Despite the baby son they had together.

"I'm not into him," Mai said softly and Ozai still looked at her with doubt.

With the doubt and jealousy that he did when she held a four minute conversation with a boy her age. He met a dismal fate that Mai did not care about, but she did care that no one, including him, trusted her for a second.

"I'm sure," Ozai said, setting down his empty glass. And with that, he left and went to bed wordlessly, leaving her to her own devices.

Part of her wanted to go see Azula, part of her wanted to check on Ty Lee, part of her wanted to figure out the right way to say goodbye to Zuko. But logical won in a mind that had become far too cold and detached for its own good, and she just followed him and took the easy route.

She did not bother with much grace, tossing her clothes onto the floor and climbing into her bed, the hot night that made her dark hair stick to her neck. Lying there, the questions of what she should do danced behind her eyes.

No one had ever been important to Mai before. Except for those three who were in way, way over their heads. And her son, her baby, he was important to her. But he was safe, even if he did need a mother. Those idiots were going to get themselves killed within the month.

She moved through the silky sheets, wanting to forget. Wanting to forget that she once had things she considered worth fighting for. That she remembered Azula's hypocritical speech to her about how losing her life was far better than losing any reason for living.

He accepted her into his arms, but certainly not without cost. And she was more than willing, to maybe find her reason for living here. Her hands traced along and down his chest, void of any of those obsessive thoughts as she stroked his cock.

There was not much of a response from either of them, but she did continue and eventually the thoughts chased her. These of Ty Lee begging her to do things she could not do. And Mai kissed his shoulder, and ran her lips further down, until he grabbed her by the hair and forced himself into her mouth.

That was forgetting. That was forgetting as he fucked her throat and she preferred the pain and panic of her body over the realities dancing in her head. He was in one kind of bliss, and she was in another, and that was perfectly alright for them.

He did what pleased him with her, and she was fine with that. Sex with Azula was always much more complicated. He just wanted to choke her with his cock, and there were no intricacies or power plays involved in that raw desire.

Mai realized, as he finished with her and she was cast aside, she preferred being a lifeless doll than trying to find rhyme or reason.

Maybe Azula was right.

That was a frightening thought.


Ty Lee's aura was the color of dried blood on a split lip. It once was a beautiful range of pink and sunset, radiating from her, making her brighter than the sun. But now, she did not even want to move from her bed, even though the nightmares chased her there, of course.

She felt somewhat blissful after Azula came to her, but the afterglow faded and Ty Lee realized that good sex could not cure or undo years of torture, or cure the crazy that Ty Lee felt she had become.

Maybe Azula beside her, holding her hand, taking baby steps would be right.

But Azula had no patience for that.

And so she licked Ty Lee out instead, and hoped that counted as several steps.

They were all so fucked up in the palace.

And tomorrow, even Ty Lee knew that Zuko's life was going to be decided upon.

Azula woke and knew that her brother was likely about to be assigned a brutal and certain death. Father would find some sort of excuse to have him executed for aiding the rebels. There was no skirting around that fact, and it made Azula hurt for some reason. She was not quite sure why it hurt, but it did.

She was not sure how she wound up sleeping at the foot of Ty Lee's bed, but it felt vaguely pleasant. It should not have, because last night she was riddled with incredible guilt.

Ty Lee's eyes flickered open as well and Azula saw that there was life in them before she realized where she was. There was this slight amount of the way Ty Lee looked at mornings, and looked at days.

"Do you still like them?" Azula asked, forgetting that Ty Lee could not hear her thoughts.

The princess spent too much time alone. Or with Mai but Mai was the type of person who just fucked you and then forgot about you, not that Azula had much of a problem with that. Azula was not the type of person who was meant to become attached, or to open to others.

It was that change in herself that scared her. Ozai might have given the order to his daughter after seeing that Azula wanted to be with someone instead of just destroying them. Love would poison her, earthly attachments would not allow her to fly.

But all of that sounded kind of nice, when she was lying in this bed, hidden from a world where she had to spearhead a nation and uphold her status as a conqueror. She was just looking directly into the eyes of her sweet, sugary downfall.

"Mornings?" Ty Lee suggested and Azula's eyes flashed in surprise. "I like them. I used to like them because they were so excited, and another day could bring so many good things with it. Now I like them because it means I lived through the night."

"That sounds like a reason to hate them," Azula said before realizing it was likely not productive towards her task of taming Ty Lee. "How are you about last night?"

"I want it to extend to today," Ty Lee said softly, a flicker of that smile on her lips. A grin that did not care at all what other people thought. A happiness that could not be penetrated even by Azula's harshest blows.

"I... Zuko's trial..." Azula murmured.

"Don't go," Ty Lee said and Azula was impressed by how lucid she was. And also unnerved by it. "You don't have to, right? Don't go."

Azula watched her brother be burned with glee. She watched Mai walk down the aisle with a smile on her lips. She did not say goodbye or give a reason when she let her father send Ty Lee to the Boiling Rock, to come back covered in the scars that Azula wants to touch so badly.

"I won't," Azula said, and she hoped that she would not regret it.

Maybe she did not, because Ty Lee kissed her fiercely on the lips, and Azula kissed all of the scars she might as well have put there.