AN: This has some sexiness, but I intend to keep it T. If it's too much, of course, I'll bump the rating up or water down the scenes. Also, I do not condone any behavior of horrible Fire Nation Teen!Jerks, but this does not take itself very seriously and there is no way that this could be centered around Azula and Ty Lee and not be in the 90210 and Gossip Girl genre.
Azula asks to stay another night after calling her father and fabricating sweet, pretty lies, and Ty Lee could not be more thrilled. It is so exciting to see Azula behave more and more like Ty Lee did when she had the summer make-over that fixed her life.
Of course, the princess has extremely ulterior motives. But Ty Lee forces herself not to notice, because it means she has even more time to make progress with Azula.
They start their day by losing Azula's guard. It is daring, it is awful, and it certainly goes against the entire reason that Azula came here. After trying a donut, however, Azula is feeling like a the ultimate rebel. She wants to push it, as bad as that is.
The two of them walk to a playground, and Azula sits on a swing and allows Ty Lee to have the privilege of pushing her before it gets too boring, and Ty Lee suggests that they go to the mall near the political side of Caldera.
It brushes a little too close to where people recognize Azula, but she thinks she can manage just fine. It isn't as if her father is going to be walking around in Hanatani's.
Azula and Ty Lee walk into the beautiful, gold tinted store that would be a tacky mall if it were not so expensive and pointedly classy. There is not a hanger out of place, and every designer imaginable is there, from nation to nation.
But the main entrance of the department store is so much more dull than the niche mall filled with curios that are not meant to be accessed unless people let you in.
"There's a reason I wanted to bring you here instead of somewhere further away from your dad," Ty Lee whispers as she takes Azula's hand in hers. The cheerleader feels relieved that the princess's hands are just as sweaty as hers.
"Oh yes?" Azula purrs, and Ty Lee nods with a mischievous grin.
They walk discretely through the store before reaching what Azula always presumed was a dressing room. She never went there, but there are a few bored security guards. Ty Lee says a couple of words that Azula does not understand, and then she is being tugged into a different place altogether.
It is kind of... breathtaking, if you really think about it.
The gorgeous flames burning in different colors. Shops that have smooth and classic displays. It looks like the type of place that people are not supposed to know about for very good reason.
"I want to show you to just one place, okay?" Ty Lee says, grabbing Azula before seeing the princess's eyes flash. Ty Lee drops her and smiles innocently before gesturing with a pleading bat of her eyelashes.
Azula complies now that Ty Lee is behaving more compliantly and they walk through the perfumed block of Fire Nation stores. Not the dominating chains. Pure Fire Nation, to the very core.
To Azula's... uncertain set of emotions, Ty Lee has led her into a store with a lot of lace in it. And many bras of designs that the princess will not admit that she has never seen. Ty Lee is smiling as she begins to walk around.
"So, lingerie and overpriced and inexplicable items of a sexual nature?" Ty Lee says in a tone Azula is slightly alarmed by.
But the princess refuses to look weak or lesser to Ty Lee, and so she nods and pretends to be leading despite the fact that she is following.
They hide the much too clearly labelled shopping bags within ones of more appropriate items, and Azula is trying so hard not to smile. She does not know why defiance makes her so happy, because it should not. Even in her darkest hours, Azula has been the perfect daughter and the perfect politician.
Ty Lee is bad for her, and Azula knows it. But it feels so good to be bad.
Azula doesn't know why. She doesn't know why she gets a thrill whenever she feels the silky bags hitting against her bare knees. Or why she likes Ty Lee so much despite how little she can help Azula ascend the social or political ladders.
It is some sickness Azula is... afraid to investigate.
Mai gets a phone call that she refuses to answer.
Mai gets a phone call that she answers, gives a very fake cough, and says she is sick.
Mai gets a phone call that she answers, listens, and then hangs up.
Mai gets a phone call that she answers, and then explains that she is not going to be an accomplice to the alleged kidnapping of Princess Azula.
Mai gets a phone call that she refuses to answer.
Mai gets a phone call that she refuses to answer.
Mai gets a phone call that she answers and groans, "Fine. Just stop calling me. I'm coming."
Oh every spirit, the princess's best friend wishes she had been more steely than that.
Mai wishes she had not decided to offer Azula's crazy-as-fuck girlfriend a ride with Azula through the city, risking her own skin for the soft, smooth skin Azula seems so intent
Okay, okay, Mai admits that a lot of it is because she is genuinely worried about Azula. She has seen firsthand that the perfect princess is really not so perfect, and can get very hurt. And Ty Lee brings out the self-destructive side of Azula that Mai knows can be an all consuming fire.
So, Mai agrees because she thinks Azula needs her protection.
It will not end well, and Mai does not know why she keeps sticking around to pick up the pieces of Azula. Sticking around to be her mom without Azula noticing it. It's horrible, and not the type of person Mai ever imagined herself being.
They have spent a thousand years in this make-up store, and while Mai does not find it awful, she does hate the sideways glances. There are two kinds of dressing darkly and playing up the cold Fire Nation features; to get as much attention as possible, or to avoid as much as possible.
One guess which Mai is. She does not like being looked at. Not out of insecurity ─ she knows no one has ever crossed her or even mocked her to her face once in her life. And she is not shy. It is actually inexplicable; it's probably something to do with her parents viciously encouraging her to be noticed with Azula at all times, to the point that Mai decided to try to become a ghost instead.
"You're perfect in all of them. You're so perfect, I just can't stop," continues Ty Lee as Mai rolls her eyes and looks at another shade of identical nude eyeshadow.
"I know," Azula replies again, not altering her tone or sounding flattered in the slightest.
She sounds like she just got told that it's a bit chilly outside. That is why Mai does not bother. Shared misery and coldness are the foundations of their relationship, not whatever Ty Lee is trying. Whatever Azula is somehow biting.
Mai has a realization when she rolls up a skin tone lipstick that has probably been fashionably outdated for forty years. Ty Lee is not so enticing and absorbing to Azula because she's hot or fun. She is enticing because she represents what Azula wants. She's projected selfish desires because of course.
And Ty Lee's gushing has nothing to do with overwhelming hormones and first love.
She wants to fix the girl who used to hurt her.
Mai wonders briefly if she should bring that up, or do something about it, but it will crash and burn eventually, and they will learn. So she buys the same make-up she has worn since she was fourteen, and sighs and clears her throat very pointedly until Azula forces Ty Lee to leave the store.
They are in the fashion district of Caldera that is quite exclusively for wealthy inhabitants and the tourists with cash, or tourists with no cash who want to stare intently. Ty Lee has shopped here, of course, once she had her make-over that fixed every problem in her life.
But before then, she stuck up her nose at it and only wore sweaters from the isles or the Earth Kingdom, or bastardized Water Tribe betrothal necklaces. Definitely some factory boots that slowly weaned out of real style after covering up any signs of Sozin's war became en vogue.
When they walk into one of the stores Azula does briefly note how ignored she is, but she has never been shopping or... anywhere in her life without a strict armed guard. The strict armed guard that think she is still in Ty Lee's home, and Azula feels queasy every time she remembers that they are relying on strangers to protect them.
And Mai keeps giving her that look about it.
They walk up the stairs, Ty Lee excitedly shuffling through clothes. Azula examines them.
"How will I explain this to my father?" Azula asks quietly, cocking an eyebrow at Mai.
And Mai shakes her head. "I'm not helping you."
"Yes, you are. We will go shopping this afternoon after you pick me up with my guard alongside us. They don't bother to check all I buy. No one will know the wiser."
"You want my money too, don't you?" Mai says, sighing.
"Yes."
"Mmm. Okay." Mai just sighs. It isn't as if her parents will notice. Actually, they might commend her somehow. Buy her a cake.
It takes all of ten minutes for Azula and Ty Lee to be laughing in a dressing room.
Mai does not think she has ever heard Azula make those noises before, and it is more disturbing than any of her drunken slurs or breathless phone calls or political grandeur. It is what it would sound like if Azula could giggle.
Ew. Just, ugh.
And then Mai sees the woman who keeps ignoring them ─ to all of their relief ─ striding towards the dressing room.
"They're not having sex in there," Mai says without thinking. And the woman swivels to face the girl she has been eyeing to make sure doesn't shoplift. "Probably."
"That isn't what I'm concerned about," slowly says the slender woman in the ugliest shade of orange Mai has ever seen.
And then Mai sighs. "Give me two minutes. Please. I'll buy whatever gives you the most fucking comission. I won't apologize for my foul language in your stupid store. It smells weird in here and is too cold."
Mai walks to the light red door and knocks on it with her knuckles. "So, I think you're going to get arrested. Just like I said. I said; you're going to get recognized here, and either returned home, or you're going to get arrested and have to get picked up, and that's why I said this was a horrible idea."
Azula is silent as Ty Lee tries to catch her breath, making wheezing sounds.
"Mai, you are not supposed to allow that type of thing to happen."
"I can't believe I'm an accomplice again."
"You chose to come."
"You asked me to come."
"Just buy something and shut them up."
"I'm doing that already, but I don't know if it's going to work. You could've played it coy. You could've just stuck to the mall."
"Tell them I'm naked."
Mai shrugs. That has worked before when Azula has demanded they occasionally toe the line. Which was rare before she decided to get an insane girlfriend who wanted Azula to become some kind of party girl. And that Azula did not just scoff in her face a or stomp her heel onto her neck. Figuratively.
And so Mai goes to pay at the counter. "They're not dressed yet. There are lots of reasons to hate people like them. Teenagers in dressing rooms. Girls like that. They're awful. I agree. But what would it take for me to make you look the other direction."
The very, deplorably prim woman feebly trying to hide her strong Earth Kingdom features and overcompensate with strong perfume stares Mai down as she waits patiently for the transaction to go through. Mai stares at the stack of lace dresses and shoes. The things Mai does for this horrible girl.
"Are you trying to bribe me, young lady."
"Yes," Mai says curtly, not bothering with how serpentine her parents act when they do it.
The woman's shock works quite well, and Mai's eyes flick over to see Azula and Ty Lee escaping in silence. That silence only achieved by Azula with her hand tightly over Ty Lee's mouth.
"No."
"Wow, I am so impressed by the morals of your second rate designer clothing store. Just give me my bags."
Mai rolls her eyes.
Azula is standing on the street, trying not to pace or draw attention to herself. And Ty Lee looks like a puppy-mouse that just tore up its owner's sofa. Mai walks out of the store onto the hot and steamy street and just stares for a moment.
"That was dangerous," Mai says as she thrusts the ugly clothes into Ty Lee's hands. "You look like you would like this stuff I had to buy. Don't look so happy. You're paying me back for them."
Ty Lee looks to Azula for defense and the princess says nothing. Azula does look quietly and coldly displeased. Okay, Ty Lee notices, displeased is a huge understatement. Princess Azula has a placid expression but eyes that could start a genocide.
"Take me back to your home," Azula orders brusquely and Ty Lee nods, batting her eyelashes sweetly. The princess is entirely unmoved by it and Mai feels silently victorious.
Thank the spirits.
"I don't think you understand just what my father would do if he found out I was in the city alone."
Ty Lee lightly protests, "You weren't alo─"
"Shut up." Azula refuses to say another word. She will not waste her breath.
Ty Lee has this wash of... guilt. And, to her anger at both herself and everyone she knows, it isn't guilt about pushing Azula too hard. It is guilt about letting herself go so far with Azula and letting herself get hurt.
The silence is physically painful to Ty Lee. She has felt that before, when trying to rekindle relationships with more awkward friends from her past, before becoming a social butterfly. But the only one who joined her was Suki, and they had known each other for so long that it was easy.
This silence, however, Ty Lee could not interrupt and redirect where she wanted it to go.
They get back to Ty Lee's house, slipping around the back without anyone noticing for a second. Mai waits to see if Azula will want to leave or not, hoping Azula does.
The two dating girls look at each other.
"I didn't want to hurt you. I wanted to... have fun. But, of course," Ty Lee stammers, "couples shouldn't just do what one person likes. We don't do what you like nearly enough. And I, Azula, I would way rather do what you like and be the person you want to be than the other way around."
"I'm aware," Azula says calmly, because of course she already knows that. It has been evident for a long time that Ty Lee is the kind of person who puts another person's desires before her own, even if it hurts herself. "I should have known better, in this case, admittedly. Yes, you behave erratically and far to immaturely for someone your age and with your status."
And with no future, Azula adds mentally.
"I..." Ty Lee disagrees, but keeps her lips zipped.
"I'm hiding from my father. That's why I asked to stay another night. That's why I came home with you. You interrupted us at a very opportune time. I am certain he was as grateful as me to avoid the conversation, but anything that could add to it is... not in my best interest."
"Oh, I thought, you, just... wanted to spend time with me."
Azula shrugs. "I don't mind that. But I will stay with you as planned, unless anything else goes wrong because of your immaturity."
Ty Lee nods, unable to say anything else.
Princess Azula walks to Mai to tell her she can leave.
But Mai speaks first, much to Azula's anger. "Do you not think that a girlfriend who wants you to impulsively live it up is bad for you?"
"No."
"She's obsessed with fixing you, Azula. That's disturbing. And her impulses are crazy."
"Maybe I have desires with her. Maybe I know that."
"Maybe she brings out the self-destructive side of you."
Azula clearly knows that is true, because she states, "You can leave."
Mai doesn't protest, because Azula can get locked in the Boiling Rock at his point for all she cares. She may be very close to Azula. Very close, but she isn't close enough to cross that limit.
Azula is detached that afternoon and evening, and Ty Lee cannot tell if that is some kind of punishment, or if she is still reeling from the fact that she could have faced punishment. But by nighttime, the room dark but the lights of the cars and city illuminating it with dancing shadows, she seems a little more... open.
Ty Lee sits on the bed, mostly in her pajamas, her braid undone and her hair cascading over her. Azula examines their shopping bags.
"This feels ridiculous," Azula says softly as she examines what is in the over the top shopping bag. It seems so desperate to cater to the wealthy of Caldera, but Azula... had no idea about... well, no idea about any of this.
She finds that she hates being the uneducated one about anything with Ty Lee. It frustrates her, to say the least.
"If you don't like it, we really ─"
"I know that," Azula says and her tone is tender enough that it doesn't hurt Ty Lee. "But I'm not used to... this. I've... I wasn't a... I had sex before I was with you."
"I realized," Ty Lee says with a smile. She had boy sex. With her boyfriend.
And she...
She takes a sharp breath that she thinks Azula does not notice, but the princess does. Ty Lee, unbeknownst to Azula, kind of kissed her ex-boyfriend super hard in the face after Azula rejected her during the party. It didn't get far. It really didn't.
But it didn't because of him reminding her that she had somebody else in her life and that revenge wasn't a good reason.
Not because of her being a decent person.
That hurts so much when she is sober and in love with Azula.
"What is this?" Azula asks, picking up the only sexual object in there that interests her other than satin and lace.
"Oh, it's really weird and cool," Ty Lee says, her eyes lighting up like diamonds. She leaps to her feet and screws open the cap. "Massage oil, right? Right? But, there's gold in it."
Azula can only be reminded of the time that her mother was forbidden by her father to take she and Zuko to this restaurant that served food with gold flakes in it. She didn't listen, and Uncle took them instead, of course. Grandfather was still Fire Lord at the time, so father did not have the power he did later.
All the same, it was...
It might have been Azula who poisoned any happy memories they would have had by telling on them.
But that is behind her, and she is kind of enticed by the absurdity of this purchase. Azula has bought frivolous things due to it being one of her only freedoms. Anything that did not detract from her bending and was not undignified was fair game, and she had a lot of fun getting the most useless of baubles from her father.
It was a small freedom. But that was enough for her.
"I think that's a little... I'll bite," Azula says before realizing the exact implications of bite.
But Ty Lee grins in response to that, not at all put off. How could she be?
"I happen to be very good at things like massages..." Ty Lee says, with a knowing glint in her eyes.
Azula knows she is being honest about that but does not quite know what to make of that. In fact, she is not sure if she wants that done to her, but it is not as if Azula wants to do it the other way around either.
Why is this so complicated?
"Are we going to be overheard or perhaps recorded and put in every tabloid and I will never become Fire Lord because I have some form of sex tape?" Azula never thought she, nor anyone actually, would ever say those words.
"No. My basement might as well be a bomb shelter. I swear. And nobody here knows I'm dating you. For all they know we're watching some kind of really dirty spy movie. Would you like me to put one on?"
Azula no longer has any responses tonight. She thinks her intelligent and once infinite well of witty replies has run dry as she toys with her own camisole straps.
"Fine," Azula says as smoothly as she can, and Ty Lee smiles again, as if this is so exciting.
It begins with a kiss, because Ty Lee has been pushed off of things before due to Azula not quite knowing how all of this works. Azula has to have control, and she has had that over her former partners, at least until everything began to crumble around her like the walls of Ba Sing Se.
So the kiss turns into the kneading of her pretty tits, and Ty Lee is very slow, not allowing herself to be too intimidated.
And so the princess is painted with gold, delicate hands that would be broken to bits if anyone saw this, which makes her heart start pounding every once in a while.
Ty Lee tries to ignore that, to kiss her, to make her realize that, in Ty Lee's eyes, Azula glitters, shines and glows much, much more than overpriced sexy massage oil.
Even if she is a bit disappointed that Azula's spine doesn't light up red.
AN: I have a quick question:
Does Ty Lee have a campy party girl Ferris Bueller vibe or is she teetering towards a manic pixie vibe? Actually, she doesn't have to have that original intent; I mostly want it to be clear that how she behaves is really not romantic or a good thing, even if it seems that way to her and Azula, and for those behaviors not to seem really idealized or cute or healthy. Does she seem idealized like the manic pixie? I'm a little afraid she might be starting to lean towards that disgusting kind of girl.