AN: As I've probably said way too much, this is based on Gaius and Caprica from Battlestar Galactica. The plot with Helo and Athena's baby is integral inspiration for this story, and I'm trying to do that genius justice. The reason I say this is because I worry the end of this chapter will be a little too weird and I want to reassure you guys that it has a purpose and it will come into play.
Humming a bittersweet tune to herself, Azula slowly twists her soaking hair into the shape of a spiraling seashell. Not long ago, she had a phalanx of servants to bathe her in jasmine scented water. Countless candles burn in her room, which should be soothing but simply is not.
She gazes at herself in the mirror and waits for someone nonexistent to appear behind her in the reflection. No one does. No ghost girlfriend.
Only when she wants to be alone.
If it is all in her head, as she suspects, maybe she can convince herself she wants to be alone. But can a person trick their own mind? She is fairly certain that minds play tricks on people, not the other way around.
Zuko denied her simple request. She always gets what she wants and when she does not, well, she never reacts very rationally. Therefore, she locked him back in the dungeon.
Who could blame her?
She has every right. She is Fire Lord, for the sake of Agni.
She has every right. She is Fire Lord. She has every right.
"Do you?" asks her ghost, suddenly appearing behind her, sitting on the foot of the bed, her eerie reflection in full view. Fire Lord Azula notices not for the first time that Ty Lee does not wear the clothes she was in when she died; she wears what she did when Azula lost her. At the Boiling Rock. Maybe that is more evidence pointing towards Ty Lee being a hallucination and not a ghost. A demon and not an angel. But a haunting either way.
Still, haunting aside, Azula tries not to look too pleased that Ty Lee appeared. Then it suddenly crushes her that, unless ghosts can read minds, this might as well be confirmation that she is purely imaginary.
"Do I what?" Azula snaps, touching up her hair and turning around to face her sexy visitant. Ty Lee flutters her eyelashes and takes a deep breath that makes Azula's eyes follow the heave of her chest.
Ty Lee asks in her prettiest of voices, "Do you have every right?"
Azula scowls. Imaginary. Her ghost is imaginary. "I said nothing of the sort."
Ty Lee looks puzzled for a moment, which Azula does not quite understand until her ghost explains, "Yes, you did. You stopped doing your hair for a minute and then you murmured, I have every right about three times. I'm guessing it has to do with Zuko but maybe I'm wrong."
"I liked you better alive," snarls Azula.
"I liked me better alive too," replies Ty Lee, winking. Azula grinds her teeth.
"This is what I am talking about," she hisses. "The gall. No one speaks to me that way and…"
"And lives?" Ty Lee gently prods.
"Shut up. Be admiring or be nothing."
"I am admiring. I think you're pretty much the most amazing person who there ever was, but it's because of that that I'm honest. You can't hurt me now and so I get to love you like you're supposed to love somebody you love."
"That made no sense."
"Basically, I've always loved you for as long as I can remember, but I never could be a real lover because I never could look out for you. I never could tell you when you were at the edge of a cliff. I could catch you if I tried, maybe, but I bet you wouldn't like it."
"If that's how you justify it," Azula coldly says, to which Ty Lee responds with a shrug. Azula's eyes smolder with rage at the defiance.
She does not know why she longs to be in the presence of this ghost.
She just doesn't.
"Tell me something about you I do not know," Azula orders.
Ty Lee swiftly obeys. "I used to sneak out—since nobody in my family would ever notice—and go to the downtown Caldera firebender fights just before game time and scalp two tickets. I'd end up right in front of the action, close enough to feel the flames and hear the cries of pain. I'd just let the energy of the crowd flow through me like an electric current and it was beautiful."
Azula asks, "Why did you get two tickets?"
Ty Lee smiles to herself, as if she has a secret. Azula narrows her eyes and waits for an answer.
"One for me and one for you," Ty Lee explains. "I knew I'd never get you to go. The fights were far too lowbrow for a princess, but I… I always liked to pretend you were there with me."
Azula thinks for a moment. Then she says, "I would have gone with you."
Ty Lee's eyes light up. She almost looks like her living self again. "Really?"
Azula frowns. "Maybe not. I suppose I never am certain of what I would have done. We are different people now."
"Yeah."
They both leave it at that.
Dressed beautifully, Azula walks to the dungeon to visit her brother. She hopes a night down there has made him reconsider his decline. He should know better, should he not? Zuko is not entirely a fool.
She stands in front of the bars and knows she cannot immediately bring up what she asked about. She considers what could be a conversation starter, what could reel him in and leave him unable to ignore her. Better than blades and hot pokers and pliers. Much better. To intrigue him.
Azula purrs, "Do you ever have a relationship or a friendship that you can't get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow… alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still could start a forest fire?"
Zuko forces a sigh and looks at her like a condescending older brother. It makes her clench her teeth and briefly bare them like fangs. "You're always so unnecessarily silver tongued."
"Tell me," orders Azula, losing her patience already. "Tell me."
Zuko groans and admits, "Yeah. One person, and just one."
Azula averts her eyes. "Mai," she says, so softly, like a breath in a windstorm.
"No," says Zuko and Azula looks up in a flash. "I miss her every day, but I know it's finished because I can't bring her back. It's over, even if I don't forget her. Somebody else might be dead but I'll never know. Unless maybe you do."
"Perhaps I could sway you when it comes to my request from the other day."
"Doubtful." Zuko shakes his head.
Azula wants to burn his other eye. Burn his entire face, his entire body, until he is ashes, but she knows she must play this cautiously. Zuko has nothing left to lose. He is even worse than Azula's ghost, and she must deal with him cleverly if she will get what she wants.
"What if I tell you something very personal? Will that make you trust me enough to talk?"
Zuko looks intrigued. "Possibly."
"I used to sneak out—since no one would really notice—and go to downtown Caldera firebender fights just before game time and scalp two tickets. I would end up right in front of the action—"
Ty Lee's voice whispers, as she leans against the bars of a nearby cell, "Please, please don't do this. I'm begging you to stop."
Azula continues, "—close enough to feel the flames and hear the cries of pain—"
Ty Lee pleads, "Azula, why are you doing this to m—?"
Azula continues, undeterred, "—I would just stand there and let the energy of the crowd flow through me like an electric current and it was beautiful."
Ty Lee blinks back tears as she whispers, "You never change, do—?"
"Why did you buy two tickets?" Zuko asks.
Azula pauses, feigning a wistful expression. After leaving him hanging long enough, she turns back to her brother. "One for me and one for the girl I loved, but was too afraid to tell. She would go with me if I asked. In an instant, but I thought it was beneath me. But you know the embarrassing part? I would sometimes pretend she was there with me."
Zuko stands in silence for a few beats.
"That is easily the saddest thing you have ever said," he comments, furrowing his brow.
Azula smoothly purrs, "Which is why I despise honesty."
"Honesty." Ty Lee huffs. Azula shoots her a glare that makes her avert her eyes and hang her head. Good.
"Fine," says Zuko. "Maybe I'll give you a short, but I have one more question. You need to tell me something about my heartworm. Did you kill her?"
"Kill who?" Azula asks, truly puzzled.
"Katara," Zuko whispers, saying her name as if it is dangerous.
"I thought you were there," Azula says, thinking back to that night, that fight, one she came within inches of losing. She remembers very little of what happened after it. The aftermath of Sozin's Comet was... wild, and she was insane. More so than she is now, talking to an imaginary dead friend.
Zuko reminds her, "Struck by lightning, unconscious, very quickly captured and imprisoned by our father."
"Then I have no idea." Azula turns up a palm and shrugs.
Zuko says, "Maybe he took her prisoner too. Find her, and I'll help you."
"You are in no position to try to bargain with me."
"I think that maybe I am."
"Because I can sympathize with your miserable plight, and I am curious myself, I shall look into the matter, but if I cannot retrieve her or she is dead, I have other ways of making you agree."
"I don't doubt it," Zuko says, so casual in the face of his horrible fate.
Azula walks away, leaving him and her ghost behind.
Azula falls asleep alone and cold. Her ghost does not return to her after the conversation in the dungeon, and did not even watch during the audiences of the day. Azula only can sleep by the saving grace of being exhausted. Exhausted by the war and the rebels, mostly.
Her dream is clearer than any she has ever had. Many of her nightmares have been vivid, but nothing like this. She truly feels like she is walking through the palace of Ba Sing Se. Something draws her down to the dungeon, and there, in a cell, stands her ghost.
"Come out of there," Azula orders, walking up to the bars. She sees Ty Lee holding something, something coated in ratty red fabric. "Just drop that and come with me. You can't leave me alone. You aren't allowed to do that."
Ty Lee says nothing about being a ghost. Nothing about being untouchable. Nothing.
She stands and walks to Azula, and to her horror, she sees what is in her arms. Blue eyes, tufts of shimmering black hair.
"She's our baby. Kya," Ty Lee whispers, sounding far too proud.
Azula ignores the ridiculous name and the ridiculous situation and the ridiculous dead girl and says sharply, "That is impossible for a number of reasons."
"She's our baby," Ty Lee repeats, trying and failing to lock eyes with Azula.
"Should I list them? One, you are dead. Two, we are both women—"
"Just look. Please look into her eyes," Ty Lee begs, her lips slightly upturned in a hopeful smile.
Azula purses her lips and keeps looking away until her curiosity gets the better of her.
"Since this is obviously a dream," she justifies, "I suppose I can tolerate the madness for a moment."
"Isn't she beautiful?" Ty Lee whispers, batting her eyelashes and dragging Azula into the alert cobalt eyes of the little baby.
Azula says, "Yes," and she wakes in her cold dark room, still murmuring the word to herself.
Yes, yes, yes.