Azula looks worse than she did when she first took over the Fire Nation. Her hair frazzled and awry, her silk clothes tied wrong with everyone too afraid to point out the mistake, her crown clasped tightly in her hand instead of on her head.
"Maybe—," she says to the room of officials. "Maybe we should just reduce their population to a more manageable size. Then they would stop giving us so much trouble. I am sick of terrorists in my city. The city I conquered and claimed and the city I allow them to live in."
Her advisors do not protest, but a few of them exchange concerned glances.
"Your eminence, we promised to live side by side with the Earth Kingdom. We offered them this generosity and I think it would be unwise to break our promise."
Azula impatiently explains to the old men and women, "We only kill criminals. The people who have accepted our promise may live."
Soft, warm lips kiss her neck. She flinches.
Ty Lee whispers to her, gently rubbing her thumb on Azula's wrist, "That's a good idea. Don't listen to them if they argue against you like dummies. Your father was too much of a coward but you're the bravest person in the whole wide world."
Azula turns to her advisors. "I am brave and my father was weak. We must be strong and take charge of this city before it takes charge of us."
No one argues.
Ty Lee winks at Azula.
That afternoon, while Azula paces in her sunny stone bedroom, Ty Lee appears.
"It would really be good for you to pull a comb through your hair once a week," says Ty Lee. "It's getting scary."
"Since your untimely death, you talk too much and about things you ought not to speak of," Azula snaps at her ghost.
Ty Lee smiles and shrugs. "It's one of the joys of being long dead, I guess."
"Long dead, long dead, long dead. Give me one reason why you might be around still."
Ty Lee claps her hands eagerly. "I know the reason."
Azula laughs wickedly and rolls her eyes. "Really? You know something? That is a rare treat."
Ignoring the insult, "Love outlasts death," says Ty Lee.
Azula shakes her head. "I would love it if you would vanish for a while."
Ty Lee just sits down.
Azula ignores her for the rest of the day.
That night, while Zuko is half-asleep, Azula barges into his room.
"Who else is alive?" she screams. "Who else did he lie to me about?"
Her brother rubs his eyes groggily. He stares at her for what takes an eternity in her eyes.
"I wouldn't know. I've been in a cell for a really long time," says Zuko. He glares and she advances on him, ready to just end his miserable existence.
She lifts a hand and someone grabs it very gently and delicately.
"You're smarter than this," says Ty Lee, batting her eyelashes. Azula clenches her jaw from anger but retracts her attempted attack on Zuko. "You're the most genius strategist in the whole world and I know you can see why he's important."
Azula sighs. To Zuko, it would appear that she glowers at thin air. He is not puzzled by it, however, because he has accepted the fact that she might be insane. She is insane.
Fire Lord Azula asks her brother, "Why are you useful?"
"I don't think I'm useful," Zuko rasps, sitting up. She crosses her arms and slightly broadens her stance. "I don't even know why you're keeping me alive. I don't know why you didn't finish that strike. The past my entire life has been agonizing at best. You'd be doing me a favor."
Azula smirks.
"Good. That is reason enough to make sure you live as long as possible."
She leaves as quickly as she came.
Zuko takes a few moments to be bewildered before he goes back to sleep.
At daybreak, Azula pinches the bridge of her nose as she looks in the mirror. Her ghost is right; she looks horrid but does not want to lift a finger to do anything about it. She does not know how to balance everything and does not know why she keeps trying.
"Ty Lee, since you are so all-knowing and therefore probably my own voice, tell me what would happen if I gave up. If I just laid down in bed until I died and let the world burn to ashes for all I cared. What would happen?" Azula whispers, lowering her hand from her face.
Ty Lee takes her sweet time responding.
"My uncle was a fisherman. Did you know that?" Ty Lee asks.
Azula rolls her eyes. The inside of her own mind is a bitch. "No."
"I told you a lot of times but I know you had better things to pay attention to," says Ty Lee. "Anyway, my uncle was a fisherman and we used to go visit him on the coast up north of Caldera. He would go fishing early every morning and I used to like to come with him. He would find stuff. Sometimes we found chunks of warships or just old stuff floating there like parts of nets. I made bracelets out of them and I never could get the bad smell of seaweed out of them."
"No wonder I never listened to you. This is boring."
"Sometimes we found dead bodies of swimmers. They would swim out from the cliffs just outside of the city and swim and swim out to sea until they drowned. They wanted to drown."
"Or they just got tired."
"Do you want to swim out to sea, Azula?"
Pretending to miss the point of the question, Azula says, "I don't want to die in water."
"How would you want to die?"
"Fighting for something."
"What?"
Azula throws an inkwell across the room. It shatters and the ink splashes all over. That does not satisfy her as it should.
"I have no clue!" screams Azula. "I have no idea what to fight for anymore! If you are so suddenly not a moron, tell me what I should!"
Ty Lee sits down, bowing her head. Her braid moves eerily. Azula catches something about her that does not feel perfectly human. It gives the Fire Lord chills.
"People fight for a lot of things. Their country, their families, those they lost. But I guess those people are all fighting for the same thing. They're fighting for love," says Ty Lee.
"Shut up," Azula snaps, "and leave me be. I have no desire to entertain your fantasies about me loving you."
Ty Lee nods and disappears without a trace.
Azula sighs from relief and sits down on the cold stone floor.
That day, "Leave me alone," snarls Azula in the throne room.
"I can't do that," Ty Lee whispers, averting her eyes from shame.
"You struggle with orders now, don't you? I am Fire Lord Azula and I demand you leave me alone forever!" Azula exclaims.
Ty Lee looks briefly saddened before plastering a smile on her face. "But I knew you before you were Fire Lord Azula."
"I was still by far your superior."
"I can't stop haunting you. It beats me too." Ty Lee turns up her palms. "You weren't complaining a few days ago."
Azula clenches her fists. "You are not a ghost. I don't even know if you're a hallucination anymore. This is a dream. Being here in this city is a dream, being Fire Lord is a dream, being alone and betrayed by the only people I dared to trust is a dream. Having all I thought I ever wanted right this moment is a dream. I am dreaming."
Hazily, Ty Lee smiles more brightly. "That sounds nice."
"Ty Lee," darkly whispers Azula as her dead love leans in for a kiss, "nightmares are dreams too."
