Laundry Guy


Ty Lee groaned in frustration and twisted her hip length hair up into a knot, hoping it would stay there this time. That morning, Ty Lee had sat on her metal cot waiting for the guards to open the doors of her cell block and end the lock down. She was braiding her hair, like normal, hoping that today was the day she would get to see Mai again. When she wrapped the thin leather strap around the end of her hair to secure the braid and pulled it tight, it snapped.

She was devastated. The girl stared forlornly at two pieces of dried leather, both of which seemed to be exactly short enough that they wouldn't fit around her braid. That day the girl was assigned to laundry duty; pushing a cart to all of the cells along with a dark haired, intimidating man (after a little argument, he did the pushing), collecting the old blankets and prison uniforms, and distributing the clean ones.

There had been another short spat between the man and Ty Lee about who would handle the dirty and who would handle the clean. It ended rather quickly when the young woman jabbed him in the throat and lifted a stack of raggedy, but clean blankets while he stood gagging and coughing. After a few minutes, both of them were getting frustrated with how frequently she had to stop and twirl her hair up into a knot. She would get about two cells down before her long hair slowly slid out of the makeshift bun and the whole process started again.

"Spirits, Princess, are we gonna stop every three minutes so you can play with your hair?" He asked, irritated when the girl paused yet again. We haven't even finished this cell block for Agni's sake, he thought.

But the petite woman whipped around to face him her eyes flashing, "YES" she shouted, pulling the knot tightly, "Do you have a problem with that?" But even as she spoke she felt the weight of her hair pulling the knot out and she let out another squeal of frustration, this time just giving letting it hang free down her back.

The loneliness of the lock down, all of her worrying about Mai, her anger at Azula, and her lack of real food and hot baths were really starting to get to the girl. She wasn't sure how much more she could take from anyone and the man seemed to be able to tell. He was three times as wide as her, and almost two feet taller, yet when she turned on him he pulled back, his hands up defensively, "Okay, okay, you don't have to get upset, Princess."

"STOP CALLING ME THAT," she almost shrieked causing the man to flinch.

"Okay, yeesh," He said, eyes wide.

They stood there for a few minutes in awkward silence; him afraid to say anything (you never knew what people in the Boiling Rock were capable of), and her breathing hard. It was rare that Ty Lee lost her temper; she was usually very good at reigning in her emotions and making herself calm down. So now, feeling bad for yelling at him, she straightened her back and worked on inhaling the positive and exhaling the negative just like she had learned in her yoga classes. "We need to finish delivering the laundry," she said calmly, trying to make her face apologetic.

He began to speak but was interrupted from by a faint yell, and a small bang from the cell one ahead of them. Ty Lee turned; the cells were supposed to be empty so they could finish their work, but the bang and the sound of a voice muffled by steel came again. Ty Lee couldn't resist, she put her ear against the door and waited. When the sound came again her entire face lit up and she slid the small metal window open to see the gold eyes of her best friend.

"MAI!" She yelled happily.

"It's about time you noticed me. I thought that was you I heard yelling out there," Mai said, a small smile on her own lips.

"Ohmygosh I missed you so much!" She squealed and tried the handle to Mai's cell but it was locked tight, "How much longer until you can come back?"

"I don't know, I thought it would only be a few days. They let me out for an hour after you've all been taken inside but that's it. I thought it was boring before, but it was nothing compared to this," she explained. The average person would have only seen the same, emotionless mask plastered onto Mai's thin face, but Ty Lee had known her long enough to be able to read her expressions. She had learned to recognize from the small droop at the corners of her friend's mouth, and the watery sheen of her eyes, that Mai was as lonely and scared as she was.

Ty Lee frowned, "They have to let you out soon," she said in her most comforting voice. "What have you been doing in there anyway?" When in doubt, Ty Lee knew that one of the best way to make someone feel better was to change the subject.

It worked, and Mai's face broke out into one of her signature, mischievous smirks. She turned around for a moment, grabbed something out from underneath her pitiful mattress and appeared back at the door, still smiling.

"When, I do get out of here, they're sure in for a surprise," she said, an angry glint in her eye as she held up three pieces of metal that looked like they had been broken from a rusty place on her cot or wall. Ty Lee didn't get it at first, but then Mai tilted the metal to glint in the light, and the acrobat could see how they had been filed into razor sharp shurikens.

"Wow, those are great!" Ty Lee said with a grin; at least Mai had found something to keep her from going crazy.

"I'm going to save them until we can come up with a good escape plan," Mai whispered.

"Escape plan?" The man behind Ty Lee asked perking up. He had been standing boredly off to the side, leaning against the wall and waiting for Ty Lee to finish her talk.

Mai leaned to the side in an attempt to see who had spoken. "I didn't know you had someone with you," She said, frowning.

"Don't talk to her! Get back to work!" A guard had finally come by to check on what Ty Lee and her partner were doing.

Ty Lee looked sadly at her friend, who's eyes were starting to get shiny again, "I'm sure they'll let you out soon," she said, before the guard came up and slammed the little window shut, giving Ty Lee a little push along.

"Go on," he ordered. She glared but said nothing, what use would it be for her to get put in solitary confinement too?


Ty Lee and the man finished their rounds late, thanks to all of the stops and the girl's chat with Mai. Now the two of them were very near the back of the food line. Great, Ty Lee thought, Now I'll get all the gross, sludgy stuff that sinks to the bottom of the pot. She subconsciously made a disgusted face, thinking about it.

"Hey," the man said, poking her in the side, "I want in on your escape plan."

"We don't have a plan," She said, totally honestly. They really didn't; before Mai was sent away they'd spent almost all of their time brainstorming. Even if they could fight their way past the guards, neither of them was able to come up with a way of getting off the island.

"Don't lie to me, little girl," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"I'm not lying, and I'm not little," she said spitefully an instant before she realized how little she felt next to him.

"What if I told the guards about your plan?" He asked quietly, both of them stepping forward with the line.

"There is no plan. If you went to them you'd just look like the idiot for not having any details or evidence," she did her best to imitate Azula's threatening yet overly sweet voice. She hadn't quite perfected it and it never came out as menacing as Azula's did. It was much too cheery and not nearly scary enough.

Nonetheless, her imitation of Azula seemed to do the trick, probably because the man had never heard the real Fire Nation Princess speak. So, he just scoffed and stayed silent until they reached the table. In the meantime Ty Lee tried to make a list of everything that was good about her life right now. It was something she used to do whenever she got depressed, and recently the list was becoming shorter.

Well…I saw Mai today so I know she's alright and that she isn't going crazy. It's..uhm…well there's a breeze, so it's not as hot as normal. There was a break when she ran through everything that had happened that day trying to think of anything else, and coming up with only one: At least I didn't have to carry the dirty laundry. Three things are better than zero things, I suppose, she thought as she stepped up to get her dinner

Ty Lee smiled at SoupGuard when he gave her a scoop of the sludgy bottom gruel. "Thank you," she said sweetly, but all she got was a minute nod of the head. When he had been delivering the food during the lock down, he would answer her questions, albeit somewhat reluctantly and always accompanied by a nervous look. She had learned that he did get vacation time (two weekends a month), that he wasn't a fire bender, and that their dinner was actually pre-made and shipped out, so all he had to do was add water and stir. However, now that things were back to normal he had returned to being silent and stone-faced and Ty Lee was more than a little disappointed, and also afraid that her fragile friendship with the man was over.

She sighed and turned to head back to her usual bench, but stopped in her tracks when she saw that it was already occupied by the Kyoshis. She groaned. They hadn't been mean to her like she had expected, instead they shot in snide comments and glares here or there, but otherwise pointedly ignored her. She guessed they must be embarrassed about when she, Mai and Azula had beaten them.

With her regular spot taken, Ty Lee stood awkwardly in the corner of the courtyard next to the table where the food was served, several other prisoners milling around. She sighed yet again and decided to go sit against the wall, but when she took a step forward she found herself jerked back by her hair, which had been tangled in the hinge of the folding table by the breeze. She felt her face heat up as a couple of the other prisoners laughed.

Breeze, you're officially off the good things list. She thought, turning around and trying to gently pull her hair out while breaking as little as possible. Once she released her hair, several strands still dangling in the table, she noticed one laugh standing out from the others. It was the LaundryGuy. The normally calm girl felt her temper rising yet again.

She imagined herself flipping over to him and kicking him in the elbow, sending his dinner bowl into his face. Then she would spin around to jab him in the shoulders with her knuckles. His arms would droop and with one, (super impressive! she thought) side kick in the ribs he would be down for the count. She would stand over him smiling triumphantly while he would lie on the ground, twitching and covered in disgusting soup.

Except that's when Ty Lee snapped back to reality and noticed that she was standing triumphantly over the man while he lay on the ground, twitching and covered in disgusting soup.

The world seemed to rush in on her and her fists drooped as she noticed a couple of the other prisoners staring at her with shocked looks. SoupGuard's arm frozen in the air, his ladle hovering over someone's bowl. Another guard stepped through the steel door whistling and holding two cups of tea.

He stopped in his tracks and quirked his head to the side as he tried to take in the scene before him. "What happened?" He asked, glancing between Ty Lee's shocked look and wilting stance, and the man lying on the ground, no one moved. "Shan?" he asked, turning to SoupGuard, who cleared his throat and finally lowered his ladle arm. By that time a small circle of prisoners had collected, most of which had no idea what had happened.

"Er, that guy attacked her?" he said, but it came out sounding more like a question. Apparently the scene had happened fast enough, and the confusion amongst the prisoners at seeing a five foot 115 pound girl take down a 6 foot man in a matter of seconds, was great enough that no one stood up to argue with him.

"Uh…well, okay. Here's your tea," he said, hanging SoupGuard one of the cups and waving with the now free hand for another guard to drag LaundryGuy away. Ty Lee smiled gratefully at SoupGuard, but quickly made her way to the edge of the courtyard.

One thing her non-braided hair was good for was hiding her face when she was embarrassed, so she took advantage of that now, sipping her soup quietly. Soon she was back to thinking about daring escape plans and she didn't realize the Kyoshis whispering behind their hands and looking over at her.


A/N: To readers/reviewers/favoriters/misc: Thanks, and I heart you! Yeah, you at the computer.