A/N: Oh yea! Despite months of inactivity and angst about reviews I'm back to a zen moment of letting this story run its own course. Oh. Sorry to all of you looking for the upturn in action I'd been promising. Guess I'm unreliable after all…
Disclaimer: Speaking of unreliable – no expectations, no revenues, no injuries and no standing for a suit. And the Constitution's justiciability principles gets a win! (sorry, an "in-joke")
Chapter 21
Azula took an assertive stand at the stern of her battleship. She knew Mai had preceded her, but she refused to give the other girl her attention, forcing Mai as a matter of etiquette to seek out the princess.
It wasn't an expression of cruelty on her part; merely one of reminding her where privileges already were defined. After all, Azula was the princess to whom Mai owed allegiance. It would have been unseemly for Azula to seek Mai's attention from others when she needed her. Mai would have been appalled to have Azula investigate her whereabouts – sheer luck had found the girl at New Ozai when Azula wanted her presence. Mai swiftly remembered the most important lesson of their school years.
Be there when I seek you – do NOT make me send for you…
Of course, Ty Lee almost had not recognized the fortuitousness of the imperial presence in the same location as her traveling circus. Luckily, it had taken nothing more than the loss of her props (and where they stood in securing the safety of others) to remind her as to destiny's hand in bringing the royal family into proximity with those who might aid them.
Where the royal family chose to attribute luck was not for any servitor to question. (Least of all, a grey-eyed girl with far too close ties to the defunct airbenders, no matter how many generations back such ties went).
As Mai ambled along the sternline towards Azula, the princess found herself questioning her school friend's devotion for, perhaps, the first time since she had forced the dividing line between her cause and Zuko's.
It wasn't that she had any actual reason. Her last subtle questioning had made it clear that for all Mai's still vibrant idealization of Prince Zuko — and any perhaps rather romantic shading of it inherent in his banishment – the noblewoman was still fully aligned to Azula. The connection between their prisoner and Zuko was extremely attenuated – he was no more than the companion of the prince's prey.
Even Azula could not imagine the convolutions such a conspiracy would take against her. Which isn't to say she hadn't tried to imagine such – she just couldn't make it either believable or remotely rational. Nor, for that matter, could she draw sufficient connections anywhere except, perhaps, between Mai and Zuko, to link any but her wildest imaginings together (then again, the whole carnal attraction of Ty Lee to the Water Tribesman had appeared to spring up out of nowhere). After all, damn it, last she'd heard, the young man was waiting for Ty Lee in her bed, after all.
With all Azula's guards fore, aft, amidships and anything in-between, there was something distinctly creepy and bizarrely comforting in realizing – as each later did – that Sokka and Mai had reasoned upon frighteningly similar lines to reach virtually the same conclusions.
When Sokka thought about it, it was obvious that Ty Lee probably had learned to time her impact on her victims' nerves or chakra pretty finely over the years, and he was an idiot to assume that he might have gained any kind of advantage over her in having been paralyzed so damned often over such a short time period. Still, the reality was that he could move – not much maybe, but he could move – perhaps in less than half the time it had taken to recover from her first attack. He had to believe there was something of value there.
Oddly enough, his captors showed no interest in this particular aspect of his captivity. He liked to think; more fools they.
Given the rather narrow time-frame he had to effect an escape before, at the outside, he could expect his friends to attempt a rescue, it seemed that even the most confirmed pessimist must recognize any advantage he could.
Well, Sokka had always taken the high (low?) road of pessimism routinely whenever the going had gotten rough. This hadn't changed with his and Katara's association with the Avatar. By definition, any advantage he'd gained in recovery time over Ty Lee's paralysis jabs was banked on a purely contingent basis. Something to be exploited, one-time only. Any actual planning must assume normal parameters as laid out and understood by both parties. Unless, of course, there was something one party didn't actually know about. Possibly, Sokka's advanced recovery time might fit into such.
He rather assumed it would never be an issue. After all, if he'd read Ty Lee correctly, she had no plans of exercising any more paralysis moves for the duration of her interest. She wanted him responsive, and her nasty chi moves defeated that purpose.
While it probably was fully predictable, he could see no real way around it. Still, he planned to keep the potentially foreshortened recovery time in his pocket as long as possible. Which meant he really couldn't even attempt to move until quite some time after she returned.
At the thought, a bit of bile rose in his stomach as he lay there. Having already noted the unwonted size of the girl's bed and its implications, he castigated himself for a childish burst of prudish morality.
Not that he hadn't already played fast and loose as to Tribal morality, having run his hands all over the girl's sultry form without any formal agreements regarding intended relationships. Granted, he'd attempted to fool himself with the fiction that he was merely positioning himself for a strike against her – ah, yes. Well, actually, he'd done that as well. A rather remarkably cold aspect of Sokka's brain proceeded to catalogue the elements of Ty Le's vulnerability his by now sufficient number of meetings with the girl had finally started to enumerate, happily assessing very rough estimates as to their reliability against what Ty Lee already knew about him
Silly girl. Surely she was smart enough to have realized just how much peril she'd been in the night before in his arms, with the ever-so-solid wall and its supporting beams that he'd determined during the course of his imprisonment were remarkably sound-absorbent…
Another sop to his conscience, perhaps.
But nothing and everything had argued towards the least auspicious interpretation of events. Only an idiot would believe an assassin of Ty Lee's caliber – oh yes, he'd figured out the girl's role in her ladyship's favor early on – would be ignorant of the vulnerability of her position.
So either she thought he was a total dolt or she was amazingly confident as to her ability to shut him down. Given their earlier history and a nod to her apparent flightiness, Sokka was willing to err on the side of Ty Lee's confidence.
Which was yet another point that might work in his favor. Such confidence might bleed into her assurance as to her ability to win over lovers. It was already quite evident that Ty Lee had every intention as to making Sokka one of said ranks.
The subject of this attention sighed heavily, glad enough that he held the cabin to himself for a while yet. He had yet to figure out if there was anything but immediate gratification to be gained in such an assignation. While he'd decided – fairly easily, in fact – that he had no problem seducing an enemy in order to gain an advantage (somehow, phrasing it that way made it seem less personal, less intimate, and less of a moral outrage), he was less confident in such an encounter where no clear advantage was to be gained beyond that of lying to the enemy on an intimate level. There was something unforgiveably sordid in deception merely for its own sake. In desperation, he turned the thought on its head to see if it might yield some new insight.
What advantage could Ty Lee – and through her Azula – gain in transforming Sokka into Ty Lee's lover? Well, if he were stupid, for the sake of wetting his wick he might spout all he knew of not only Aang but the Earth Kingdom defenses.
But he was far from stupid. Azula herself considered him the quintessence of betrayal to the Fire Nation ideal. Obviously, they would not count on any dangerous statements among his pillow-talk.
So could anyone actually hope for more from a liaison between Ty Lee and himself than some form of physical gratification?
The more he turned it over in his mind, the greater the sinking feeling in Sokka's gut grew. Ty Lee might expect nothing more of him – and Sokka had begun to finally trust in the fact that the girl would have been happy if he were a mute beast on which she could play – but Azula never would.
Ty Lee was elated, and determined to celebrate her victory in her favorite place – sans her own boudoir. The galley.
She was not disappointed. The kitchen boy was delightfully stripped to the waist as he manned the ovens. While several years her junior, he was still nicely filled out – funny how hefting coals to feed the ovens, slinging about birds and beasts on roasting spits, and the rest of the minutia of kitchen duties she couldn't imagine, could go towards shaping a slim torso and lean musculature into something else delectable to … taste.
Generally, Ty Lee had enjoyed free range in imposing her personal tastes on most aspects of their journey. Azula, apparently, had little care for such aspects of taste and culture, as long as Ty Lee didn't stray too far from Fire Nation norms.
Mai had refrained entirely from expressing any care. Beyond, of course, an insistence on the availability of fire-flakes upon request, day or night. Oh. And that rug that cushioned the solemn girl's feet upon entrance into her cabin.
"Was he a good fuck?" Her customary bowl of fire-flakes in hand, Mai leaned negligently against the wall leading to the galley proper from the mess hall.
Ty Lee briefly considered. Never had Mai bothered to comment on her lovers without intent to make her look bad. She looked around. Aside from the girl assigned to keeping the stewpot filled they were ostensibly alone. It was, also, remarkably early in the day for Mai to be making such assumptions.
"Hmmm. It would be a first for you to wonder," Ty Lee found her own place against the wall, eyeing the fire-flakes in terms of their ability to enable Mai to outlast her in this particular duel.
"That bad, eh. So. You keeping him in your cabin for pride's sake?" Mai smiled a smile so facilely false as to make Ty Lee wish to cringe for the sake of obviousness. But that, also, would have been a cue to her "friend".
"Really, Mai, you should know me better than that." Ty Lee managed to croon, happy to catch out of the corner of her eye her sweet kitchen boy laying out a tray of sweetened rice-balls not long after observing her appearance in the galley.
"Ah, wishful thinking on your part, I suppose… Well, I guess there's always still a chance." Without a backwards glance Mai sashayed out of the galley, fire-flakes bowl easily crooked under one elbow. On the lintel she paused momentarily, looking back at Ty Lee. "Pity really. I rather like the boy's balls. Oh, I don't mean the way you do, of course." She smiled that patented meaningless smile that hinted legions with zero promise. "Well, disappointment is an exercise in strength, is it not?"
Ty Lee mentally swore in a manner that would have raised serious questions among even the most robust of her followers. As if it wasn't enough to have Azula on her ass as to assessing the value of her sexy Water Tribe youth and his knowledge. No, she had to have her dear compatriot bringing her razor-barbed wit to the question of his continued value in staying alive. Thank you very much, Mai.
Ty Lee had always relied upon her friends to drop her hints and, of course, more thereon, as to events that might influence her dearest friend and mentor Azula. She'd been careful to have at least as free a hand in rewarding those who betrayed the Princess' trust as those who told her stories otherwise. After all, who really cared if things were going right, as long as 'right' meant good for themselves?
The kitchen boy had forwarded on to her the commentary of the guard Sokka had christened "Sparky" as to the Tribesman's likely ability to give her pleasure. After all, earlier on Ty Lee's humor had been caught by the Tribesman's nickname, and she'd passed it on to the kitchen boy; soon the guardsman's actual name had been lost in the general ribaldry. That Sparky's comments had been acerbic and full of hyperbolic promises as to upholding Ty Lee's honor probably encouraged such flightiness. Ty Lee, after all, felt honor-bound to defend her current lover before the slings and arrows of a former amour, while the kitchen boy simply appreciated the denigration of a bender by another non-bender, even if he was a rival for Ty Lee's affections.
It did not occur to Ty Lee to attach much to Mai's comments as they pertained to Sokka himself, instead assuming they were all merely jibes against herself. After all, she had already ascertained Mai's continued devotion to the Fire Prince, and Azula herself had evinced sufficient attention to her Water Tribe prize to explain any unusual attention Mai might have given their prisoner. And hadn't she seen for herself the cruel pleasure, disdain and impatience Mai had demonstrated upon the recovery of his shirt just the day before?
Still, Mai was more on edge than usual. Probably more frustrated, and the prospect of Ty Lee's indulgence all the more galling. That was itself enough of an explanation for Mai's unwonted harshness. As she walked to her cabin Ty Lee's hand found its way to her pocket, smoothing against the expanse of leather bulging against the fabric.
Well, she still hadn't come across a way she wanted to present this necessity to Sokka. But at least the altercation with Mai had given her a respite from thinking about the upcoming confrontation.
An element of Sokka's brain wanted to scream and slice the balls off of every man who approached him. Granted, the first response was rather girly but its follow-up seemed sufficiently severe given the magnitude of being collared! Like a fuckin' pet!
At first it had all been so damned pleasant that he'd fully enjoyed pretending to be powerless. Although, of course, an element of his pride had squealed against even this pleasure, Sokka took a moment to bless whatever spirits sanctioned those who lie in wait as he continued to lie motionless upon Ty Lee's bed as she cooed above him, arranging pillows and whatnot. She stroked warm fingers across his cheekbones as she babbled some nonsense regarding unsubstantiated Water-Tribe attacks on the Fire Nation capital – they both knew the falsity of any such reports, allowing her fingers to trail down his neck and down his sternum.
She kept her other hand buried deep in her pocket, and despite that trailing hand dealing invisible fire to his torso, he steeled his will against his body anticipating attack from that hidden hand, and found himself taking note of an odd hesitancy in both her gaze and that oddly trembling arm in her pocket.
He allowed his mouth to crook in that lopsided smile that Ty Lee seemed to admire so much, half-wishing he dared reach up to trail a finger along her own lips, wistfully twisted into an unreadable expression. He was relatively sure he had regained sufficient control to do so, although his basic plan precluded revealing such ability yet.
Mere seconds later that other hand had eased out of her pocket, trailing the expanse of leather behind it. She'd bent her head down, slanting it a bit to cover his lips with hers as she'd deftly reached around his neck to draw the length of leather behind his head. As she continued to ply his lips to distraction she'd drawn the end of the collar through the confining hasp on the other end, securing it awkwardly as his head and chest had suddenly surged up against her lips, finally recognizing something unexpected in her movements.
"What the fuck..!" His hands had clenched in desperation, rising slightly above the bedcovers – rather more above them than she had been expecting, actually, before his head fell back again against the pillow, shock writ large across his features.
His harsh words were an opening spigot for Ty Lee, her eyes suddenly flooded by an overwhelming gush of tears, the cloud of which Sokka barely had time to register before her face suddenly rushed down again to meet his, dipping at the last moment to tuck her forehead beneath his chin as she sobbed against his chest and her arms wound their way around him to clench against his shoulderblades as she heaved wordlessly against him.
Furious at the unaccustomed constraint against his throat, constricting his tribal necklace between his neck and the confines of the wide strip of leather that howled against all of his instincts, Sokka dug short fingernails into the calloused flesh of his palms as he forced his arms to lie flat against the bed, determined to maintain the fiction of his helplessness.
Was it a minute or even five minutes later that Ty Lee raised herself? She brushed one finger across his lips and smiled crookedly, as if in apology, as she brought a final object out of her pocket – a finely-wrought metal fixture that neither mistook for other than a lock, which she affixed to the hasp on one end of the collar and the loop at the other end.
Ty Lee was caught by the changing hues in the Tribesman's eyes as she stumbled through these movements. The cobalt that had caught her gaze on their first meeting shifted through a myriad of colors, including oddly marine hues impossible to discern in any reflection of the room around him, before settling in a steely blue bereft of warmth or shine.
She knew she had attained a certain relationship with the Tribesman the night before, a warmth of understanding between two creatures caught on opposite sides of a fence that neither one had raised. Ty Lee had always suspected in her gut that the problems in the world were a result of the boundaries people drew to separate them. Although simplistic, it was a remarkably apt assessment of the world at large.
Alas, the collar she placed upon Sokka did nothing to defuse the boundaries he had felt the Fire Nation had drawn against his people.