The sole survivors of the plane crash sit around the fire that Azula and Zuko tend. They need fire to keep the beasts away and to keep themselves warm, but they certainly have no food to cook using it. Yue lies sleeping beside Mai, who tries desperately not to look at her leg and to ignore her fever. Jun and Jet try to look tough. Katara pokes at her hands and winces at each touch. Zuko stares into the flames, his mind somewhere far away.
Azula and Ty Lee are linked together near the flames.
"Y'know what I want?" Ty Lee whispers, shivering despite the warmth of the campfire.
"What?" asks Azula, moderately relieved that her fiancée has finally spoken. Ty Lee usually never shuts up, so the abnormal, shivery silence had been making the Fire Lord fairly uncomfortable.
"I want to dance at Sushi King again. Do you remember dancing at Sushi King?"
Azula closes her eyes and recalls every moment, every scent, every motion, every tacky decoration in the restaurant as the jukebox played. "How could I forget?"
Ty Lee whispers through her chattering teeth, "I love you, Azula."
Azula falls silent and looks away. Ty Lee's heart pounds in her chest, terrified of a rejcection.
At last, Azula breathes, "Don't do that to yourself."
"We're getting married," states Ty Lee in disbelief. Azula falls silent, and Ty Lee tries to figure out what to say. "Are you bored? Do I bore you after all this time?"
"It isn't about you." Azula thinks for a moment. "It's about the concept of love."
"Love bores you?" Ty Lee demands, unable to process that. Nothing makes her heart flutter faster or her blood pulse more fiercely than love.
Azula faintly sneers. "It disappoints me."
Ty Lee hangs her head as she whispers, "Is it my fault that it disappoints you?"
"I don't know. I only know that I have never been able to relate to the feelings they sing about in love songs and I don't care if I ever do."
"I wish I could make you feel that way."
"Of course you do. Who wouldn't?"
All Ty Lee can think is, Typical Azula, and she almost laughs out loud thinking such a casual and normal thought in such a tense and abnormal situation.
"Can I cuddle with you for warmth?"
"Yes."
Ty Lee crawls across the ice cold ground and rests her head softly on Azula's shoulder. From that first isolated touch, she wraps herself around her fiancée. She wants to cry, but she cannot. She does not know why it feels impossible; maybe she is too dehydrated. Or maybe she cried too much and her body is broken from it.
The girl she loved, her best friend since childhood, the only person who kept her grounded during her dangerous infatuation with a royal madwoman is dead.
Suki is dead.
Suki is dead.
Suki is dead.
Ty Lee whispers in Azula's ear, "I'm pregnant."
The Fire Lord jumps, then flinches. "What?"
Ty Lee giggles, making Azula's eyes flash furiously. "Oh spirits, I'm totally not. I just wanted to know what it would feel like to say that." She suddenly looks sad. "I always wanted to be able to say that one day."
"I am Fire Lord Azula and I am not going to die in the woods, and you absolutely are not going to die with me. Understood?"
"Understood," whispers Ty Lee.
She then learns it is not impossible for her to cry, because she cries, cries uncontrollably.
But Azula? Azula is the Fire Lord. And Fire Lords are not allowed to weep.
Aula lights the fire again. She listens to the animals in the distance and wonders if they will attack. It is only after a brief while that she realizes the animals won't; they have a feast from the bodies left smoldering in the woods.
She starts to hear the ripping of flesh and the fighting of beasts.
It does not bother her.
And that does not surprise her in the slightest.
Ty Lee shivers against her as she returns to their huddle. Katara and Mai are together, Katara struggling to take care of Mai's wounds. Then trying to help others.
While Azula presides over them, the leader who does not work. The leader who notices that Ty Lee is barely wearing anything.
And it is cold.
The night is cold. The night is dark. The night is unforgiving even to those with fire.
She whispers to the slowly fading Ty Lee, "Do you know the moment I fell for you?"
"No." Ty Lee shivers again.
"It was that one time in middle school when you threw up on the trampoline."
"That isn't, like, my best moment. I barely remember anything but a headache and puke everywhere, though."
"Then let me tell you what it was like for a spectator. You thought you could impress everyone with a triple backflip and you hurled while finishing the third one. It was funny, but that isn't what I remember. I remember that you jumped down and giggled and took a bow. I was in awe of it. I was in awe of how you were just pleased with who you were, even when you made a fool of yourself."
"I don't even remember how I fell for you. Maybe when my bangs were on fire during chemistry class. Maybe before then." Ty Lee smiles.
Azula holds her until dawn, only thinking of how she cheated, cheated, cheated.
Azula wakes up and a hand stifles her scream. She can barely breathe as she looks up and sees Zuko. ZuZu whispers, "I need you to check on Yue. I'm worried about her."
"I can't leave Ty Lee. She's barely wearing anything and it's below freezing out here. Get Katara." Azula glowers at her brother. The shadows dancing on her face make her look foreboding but Zuko does not care.
Zuko says, "Katara went out for more wood with Jun. I've been keeping the fire going since you passed out. Check on Yue."
Azula wants to say something pithy or something hateful or something in between but she ignores it and slowly helps the sleeping Ty Lee into Zuko's bloody arms. She checks Ty Lee's pulse on her neck before walking past the fire to Katara.
"Are you okay?" Azula coldly asks.
Yue does not reply.
Azula repeats, irritated now, "Are you okay?"
Suddenly, Mai's amber eyes flash open.
Mai murmurs, flatly in a different way than usual, a chilling way that makes Azula feel slightly ill, "She stopped breathing a while ago. I thought I… I thought I told Zuko… maybe I just dreamed it."
"You've been out for a while," Azula says, seeing the sweat on Mai. It is freezing out, and Azula dares to touch the skin of her best friend. She feels a fever.
They need to be rescued now. Now, now, now.
Azula has always gotten what she wants… until today.
Mai grumbles, "I've decided I really don't like seeing my bones."
Azula looks down and after clasping her hand over her mouth to hold back vomit decides that she does not like seeing the bugs crawling on top of those exposed bones.
"Well," coolly mocks Azula, trying to calm the situation with an icy joke, "You don't like anything, so I'd expect it."
Mai does not laugh. Jet even shoots a glare that makes his perpetually angry eyes flash in the firelight. Azula purses her lips.
"What do you want me to do with the body?" is all she asks.
At dawn, Azula checks on Ty Lee, deems her healthy as one could be in this dreadful situation, and then she rises and walks over to Katara. Her eyes are sunken and she looks hopeless.
She feels hopeless and helpless.
"What is it?" demands Azula.
"I first learned to heal when I got hurt by accident. My friend was a firebender and he accidentally burned me. I was ten or eleven. When I put my hands in the sink to cool them off, the burns healed. I started going to healing classes after that."
"Why should I care about this story?" Azula remarks icily, licking her teeth.
"Because I've always known that I can fix people who are hurt. And a lot of people are badly hurt right now. A couple probably will die before we're rescued; these mountains, these woods, they're a big place. I can't fix them. For the first time, I can't fix them."
"Do you blame me for breaking your hands?"
"No. You didn't have a choice and you were thinking quickly. I don't know why I like you. You're selfish and vain and brutal towards others. But I do like your confidence in your actions. Don't tell me you doubt yourself now."
"I don't. My father always said to leave second guessing to the historians."
"You've had a hard time, haven't you? Him dying… the terrorists… losing that shallow girl you love so much for some reason. And now a plane crash."
"My life was never meant to be easy. The world works in balance. I am beautiful, clever, and born into royalty. The spirits needed to balance that out somehow." Azula kneels. "Just like they needed to balance out your beauty and intelligence and the fire inside of the waterbender you are by making you suffer the pain of falling in love with me."
"Don't!" snaps Katara fiercely. "Don't even try it with me."
Azula abruptly stands up, stunned speechless. No one talks to the Fire Lord that way.
"I will try whatever I like."
"Don't try to make me pity you."
"I never would do such a thing. I loathe pity!"
"You use pity! You use anything to get what you want because you're a manipulative girl. I regret ever being with you."
"Good to know," Azula coldly states. "The feeling is mutual."
They both are lying.
Azula turns away and faces the group. "Headcount. Katara," she says and Katara grunts unhappily. "Mai."
"I can't walk. Where do you think I went?"
"To Hell," says Azula. "Jet?"
"Present, teacher," he sarcastically drawls.
"ZuZu."
"Don't call me that," spits her elder brother.
"Ty Lee."
"I'm here," she says through chattering teeth.
"Get closer to the fire," orders Azula. "Jun."
"I'm unfortunately still breathing."
"Great. I am pleased to know I am a leader of such a happy and enthusiastic group."
Jet scoffs and says, "We're not a Fire Scout troop or a rock band. We're survivors of a devastating plane crash, surrounded by carnage that once was our friends and carcinogenic rubble. Don't expect us to be worried about earning Good Sportsmanship patches."
Azula takes one menacing step towards him. "Listen to me. I intend to make sure we make it out of this alive, and the best way for us to do that, is for you to take that tough guy attitude and shove it up your ass."
No one says a word.
"I think we should move, try to find help," says Katara.
"No," states Ty Lee. "We need to stay near the wreckage so the rescue helicopter can see us."
"We should split up. Delegate," orders Azula. "Katara, you need to stay here by the wreckage."
"Why? Don't—don't tell me what to do!"
"You're hurt. You're badly hurt and you need to stay here and wait with Mai and Jet."
Azula regally orders, shoulders back and a smirk of arrogance on her bloody lips, "ZuZu, Ty Lee, go scope out the nearby area. Be back within an hour and don't go too far. Maybe there is a way to get help faster. If you find a trail, a stream, anything, I'll put together a more competent party to seek help."
"Fine," says Zuko. Azula expected more resistance, but perhaps she gave him the task he desired. That makes some sense to her, at least, in a situation that makes absolutely none.
"First we need to hydrate and eat," says Katara. "From my medical opinion, that feels a bit necessary. I know the adrenaline curbed our appetites, but I'm not sending Zuko into the forest without at least some food."
"Just Zuko?" Katara narrows her glistening eyes.
Azula scoffs. "Ty Lee can do whatever she wants. I don't care."
Slowly, Ty Lee stands up. "Do you have a problem with me?"
"I have a lot of problems with you."
"People—people don't have problems with me. I'm like the nicest person who ever lived."
Katara laughs coldly. "Seriously? You believe that?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Maybe you were nice, but that was before Azula. But I'm sure you're happy to know that I fell for the trick too. I slept with her while you were being tortured by terrorists."
"Yeah, well, congrats on my sloppy seconds!"
"Excuse me? I am nothing sloppy and I am no one's second."
Ty Lee briefly bows her head in a sign of respect. "My apologies, Azula," she says, but then she returns her gaze to Katara, "but I'm angry!"
"Your anger is like a mouse being pricked with a needle. My anger is like the ocean after an earthquake hits it," snarls Katara through her teeth.
"How do I taste, water whore?" snaps Ty Lee before Zuko grabs her arm.
"Hey, not the time. You two can deck it out once we get home," he says.
"Yeah." Ty Lee nods and softly smiles at him. Azula grinds her teeth, but does not protest.
"Katara, help me find food and water," says Azula.
"And something to wash Mai's leg with as well, if we can."
"There's plenty of luggage. The cheerleaders always overpack."
No one gives any honor or respect to the dead.
It doesn't feel real enough to accept that a corpse lies in the midst of their conversation, beautiful, platinum hair matted with her own blood.
No one even gives Yue a second glance.
No one thinks too much about the animals ripping apart the bodies of their friends in the night while they try to sleep.
There is time to mourn later.
Katara and Azula walk through the crash site. Tears trickle from Katara's protuberant cobalt eyes, but Azula remains icy cold.
"You don't have to be so… assertive."
"I am not always assertive. I can be quite kind when it gets me what I want."
"Why do you feel the need to be a domineering leader anyway?"
"I am in no mood for a heart to heart. Take your feelings elsewhere."
"Humor me."
"Other than my divine right to rule, which I was born with, I would say that I need to stand up for myself. I need to be strong because as Fire Lord I often will be the only one speaking for the masses. Maybe that is the best way of putting it. I must stand up for myself."
"Standing up for yourself doesn't mean standing alone."
"I will take that under advisement."
Katara grinds her teeth for a moment but somehow manages to compose herself.
"Last night I was thinking about everything I wanted to be. Everything I never would get to be. Did you know I always wanted to be an astronaut?"
"That's dumb."
"I did. The moon grants me the gift of waterbending. Why not touch it?"
"Fine. That is somewhat fair." Pause. "But what's the point anyway?"
"What do you mean?"
"People do grand things like touch the moon because they want to make history."
"Not all people think like you do."
"Oh, come on. Someone already did it. Tuila Ko walked on the moon first and can you name anyone other than her who ever did?"
"I want to touch the moon because I want to be connected to it, not because I want people to remember me."
"You know why I am so composed in this situation?"
"Why?"
"Because I never was afraid of dying. I was only afraid of being forgotten after I did. And I won't be. I didn't manage to make any great acts as Fire Lord but I was Fire Lord. I ran away with the girl I loved and that will be recorded forever. I am not afraid to die out here because I know my legacy will live on."
"I have a life left to enjoy, whether or not people remember me. You can't enjoy your legacy when you're dead, but you could enjoy your future with Ty Lee."
"My future with Ty Lee? Have you stopped competing?"
"I never was. I don't want to fight for you. It's pointless. You two can have each other. You're not worth the effort."
"I am worth the effort. I am absolutely worth being fought over!"
Katara does not say another word, and Azula refuses to embarrass herself by continuing to protest like a petulant child.
After an awkward scavenging mission, Katara and Azula return with acetone, a little bit of rubbing alcohol, several snacks and even more water bottles, and a few juices too. One pretty pink scorched bag even had protein drinks in it. And one gift for Ty Lee.
Azula hands her an airplane blanket, so miraculously untouched by flame that it almost seems destined to become a gift of romance.
Ty Lee takes it. "I used to sleep in your clothes sometimes. It was the closest I could get to sleeping next to you."
"I can't tell if that is cute or creepy," purrs Azula, and then she watches Ty Lee shiver again. "I suppose I will go with cute."
Ty Lee smiles.
Katara kneels, tending as best she can to Mai's leg, with her broken hands significantly holding her back. Azula hovers a few feet away, unsure how to approach her closest friend and the girl she let herself fall for like a fool.
Mostly, Katara orders Jet to pick bugs and dirt and tree debris from the wound.
"Katara," says Azula, "how are your hands?"
"I've almost stopped noticing the agonizing pain but they're useless, as we've already established."
"I want to take a small, elite team to get help. I know ZuZu and Ty Lee found nothing, but we need to do something. We need to find help," orders Azula, setting her muddy and bloody hands on her hips. Katara just stares. Coldly, unafraid. It oddly turns Azula on.
"Yeah?" Katara asks.
"You and Ty Lee. We should go see what we can find. ZuZu and Jet can stay here with Mai, and wait by the plane in case rescue comes."
"I don't know if I'm ready for a hike."
"Are you ready to die?"
"Oh, come on."
"Because we have two options in this forest. We fight for our lives actively, or we die."
Katara grits her teeth. "You broke my hands. I'm not going to be rock climbing any time soon."
"Just come with us."
Katara frowns. "Fine."
"Good."
"Just give me five minutes to finish with Mai."
A few minutes later, "Mai," says Azula, touching her friend's shoulder.
"Mhm?" Mai's eyes lull and Azula's heart skips a beat.
"I…"
"Don't get mushy on me."
"Thank you for standing by me through my madness. I appreciate your efforts to be a supportive friend in my life since we were young."
"Aww. I'm flattered," mocks Mai. To Mai's flawlessly-masked terror, Azula does not seem angry at all.
"Just… stay alive." Azula awkwardly pats Mai's shoulder and turns to walk away.
She leaves behind her dying friend and crosses her fingers in hopes that she will find help soon enough to save her one true friend.
As they walk through the frigid and foreboding woods, Katara remarks, "You're not very bothered by all of the deaths out here."
Azula turns to her side. Her focus had previously been on the scantily dressed fiancée wrapped around her like tin foil on a sandwich.
"I don't really care about anyone who died."
"Does it bother you to have taken the throne from your father?" says Katara, guising her more rude question as something else. She intends to ask if Azula was troubled by any deaths at all, her father's, for example, and they both know it even if it is left unsaid.
"Do you honestly think this is the best place and time for this conversation."
"We have a long walk ahead and I'm curious."
"At first I blamed myself for… being less than the daughter he wanted. Eloping with some girl, acting unlike what I was meant to be. But then I realized I was better off."
"You really think so? You don't have to put up a front."
"It isn't a front! If you knew my father you would understand. I was never a daughter to him. I was… I don't know what I was. But I know I was born to replace Zuko because he was dissatisfactory. I know that I was raised with no friends aside from Mai and I was pushed to impossible tasks on a regular basis to make him and his dynasty look good. If I was never a daughter to him, why should he be a father to me?"
They walk in silence for some time.
"It just hit me," whispers Ty Lee, sliding down from around Azula and keeling on the ground.
"What did? That we are stranded and are probably going to die?"
"That Suki is dead. Suki is dead. Suki is dead!" Ty Lee begins to wretchedly sob and claw at the forest floor as Azula's eyes widen. Ty Lee looks up at Azula with tears streaming from her eyes and cries out desperately to the gods above, "SUKI IS DEAD!"
The birds flee from the trees.
Azula does not know what to do, standing on the fringes while Katara manages to comfort the hysterical girl. Ty Lee still sobs and stays on the ground, despite Katara's best efforts.
"We need to stop here, at least for a little while," says Katara.
"I will decide when we stop!" snaps Azula.
"Don't let your jealousy get involved right now. She's having a nervous breakdown and we need to keep her safe and comforted. Understood?"
"No! Not understood!"
"Do you want to help Ty Lee or not?"
"Of course I do, but I take orders from no one! I am the Fire Lord!"
"That doesn't matter out here. Sit with me. Be calm for once."
Azula slowly sits down beside Katara. Ty Lee leans to the side and rests her head on Azula's shoulder.
The following silence is painful.
Katara blurts out, "What happened to your mother?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"I don't know. A question I always wanted answered and now I don't care about tact because I'm probably going to die."
Azula sighs. She refuses to admit defeat, and doubts she will die out here, but she does suppose nothing is stopping her from telling the truth. Not anymore. Not now that father is gone.
With a sharp breath, the Fire Lord coolly explains, "She left when I was ten. It was nothing dramatic. No shouting or slammed doors. She just slipped out in the night and never came back."
"My mother died when I was about the same age," says Katara.
"Do I look like I care?"
"I'm trying to find common ground again."
"Again? I don't even know why we became involved."
"Chemistry. Probably nothing more than that," lies Katara. "There.. were feelings, though. Not love… just feelings."
Ty Lee lets out another sob and the girls abandon their intimate conversation to comfort her.
Before long, they begin to walk once more.
The walk is as one would expect. Azula and Katara never stop arguing about directions and Ty Lee moves like a zombie between them, holding Azula's hand as if she will float away if she does not. Azula keeps a tight grip as if she subconsciously feels the same way.
But suddenly, as Azula and Katara argue pointlessly, Ty Lee lets go of Azula and starts walking away.
"Ty Lee!" shouts Azula, briefly recalling her first moments after she realized she had been in a plane crash. "Ty Lee, come back!"
"I hear cars!" Ty Lee exclaims, smiling like a fool.
Azula bites her lower lip. She slowly turns to Katara.
"I hear them too," she says.
Katara nods. "Let's keep going."
"We ought to keep going," Azula says, speaking a little more loudly than Katara.
They reach a ravine. A deep one littered with branches reaching out in hopes of grabbing or stabbing those who dare climb down.
"Your hands…" Azula remarks.
"Yeah…" Katara murmurs.
"Ty Lee and I will get help. You wait here."
"Maybe—"
Ty Lee cuts off their conversation by gracefully sliding down the ravine. It is a long drop, but she uses the branches to her advantage and does half of a flip before she lands and looks up.
"It's not as bad as it looks!" she screams up at her fiancée and her fiancée's mistress.
Azula turns to Katara. "I am not doing this."
"What happened to the fearless Fire Lord Azula ordering me around all day?"
"She is wise enough to know Ty Lee should go for help alone, because the only reason she survived the drop is because she is a circus freak." Katara purses her lips. "And your hands are fucked up beyond belief. They are quite disgusting."
"I know," says Katara. "But I can take you down if you use your firebending to help us."
"There is no guarantee. I refuse to let Zuko take the crown because my-my-my whatever I would call you, insists that I try out firebending certainly not made for this situation and possibly plummet to my death. This ravine is steep. It is almost a cliff!"
"Trust me!" says Katara, grabbing Azula by the waist.
"No." Azula shoves Katara and skitters backwards. "Don't use that word."
"What do you mean?"
"I do not trust anyone, because everyone leaves. When people get close to you, they just need a shorter knife to stab you in the back. Trust is for fools."
Katara blinks. "I wasn't expecting such a dramatic monologue… or maybe I was. Just make whatever choice feels best to you, Fire Lord Azula."
At that name, at the sound of her rank, Azula walks forward and lets Katara grab onto her again. Together, they slide into the ravine. The dirt and rocks and branches scrape them. Azula grabs what she can, while Katara uses her feet to stabilize them both.
As they reach the part that ends in a deadly freefall, Azula closes her eyes and hopes she is not too exhausted for advanced firebending to succeed.
But she makes it. She catches them, directs herself and her whatever-she's-called down to the ground. Ty Lee already starts walking through the trees towards the distinct sound of vehicles.
Katara turns to Azula and they lock eyes, breathless, chests heaving.
Azula seizes Katara's arm and draws her into a fierce, passionate kiss that makes the forest disappear.
But when Ty Lee pokes her head around the corner, Azula pushes Katara away.
Katara decides at this moment that she will never kiss, touch or speak to Fire Lord Azula ever again. Her life would be better off for it, she decides with her arms crossed over her breasts.
Azula checks on Ty Lee and helps the startled and traumatized cheerleader to her feet.
She squeezes Ty Lee's hand as Katara watches with a clenched jaw.
"I hear the road," Azula whispers.
Ty Lee gently smiles. Katara's ears perk up as she listens to the cars drive by.
A few hours later, Azula stands at the nearest military base to the forest where the plane went down. Mai is hospitalized. Jet went with her, to Azula's shock (she imagined they were nothing more than a sexual fling but…). Katara also was sent to the healers and last Azula checked, the waterbender was sedated.
Zuko settled in for the night and took the pills they gave him, falling into a deep sleep.
They give Azula medicine to help her sleep, to help her with the trauma. She showers and cleans herself off and puts on the clean clothes that the dutiful soldiers laid out for her.
She sits in her room alone for a few moments. It is one of the quarters intended for officers, but no one protests letting the Fire Lord sleep wherever she pleases.
That thought hits Azula and she stands up.
She… for the first time… thinks she might need someone.
She cannot stop thinking about the people dying around her, how little she cared about hearing the animals fighting over the corpses of her former friends in the night. She tries to suppress it but she cannot help but think about the day her mother left. Then the day Zuko was shipped away for being an unsatisfactory son. Finally, she cannot force away the memory of her father's assassination. She watched him die.
Azula rises. Only one person stays in her life.
It is not stable. Ty Lee is a boomerang, not a sturdy foundation to stand upon. But Azula will settle for a boomerang as she tries not to think about the forest, tries not to think about her deep conversations with Katara.
She walks to Ty Lee's room and finds it guarded. Guarded. This day just gets better and better. By which Azula means worse and worse.
The two men in casual uniforms bow. "We are ordered to protect the future Fire Lady."
"Well, I am the current Fire Lord and I demand you allow me in," says Azula.
The guard's face flushes from fear. Azula did in fact inherit some good things from her father. He takes a deep breath and at last makes his decision; he steps aside and allows Azula to walk in.
She sees Ty Lee in a white nightgown, braiding her soaking wet hair. Soft traces of bubbles from a bath stick to her fawn skin.
Ty Lee jumps and slowly turns around. "Azula. I'm so happy to see you. Are you okay?"
"Mostly," states Azula.
"Me too."
Striding further into the crisp hotel room, Azula sits down on the bed. She gazes at Ty Lee as she slowly walks forward, then halts a few feet away. She teasingly lifts her soft, willowy dress. Azula softly bites her own lower lip. Ty Lee gives her those remarkably bedroom eyes and Azula hollowly laughs. Ty Lee laughs too.
Fire Lord Azula stands and walks to her future Fire Lady, and slowly lifts that dress up, revealing pink panties with cartoon characters on them. Ty Lee raises her hands as if in a graceful dance move and Azula lifts the dress over her body, revealing beautiful, round, tanned bare breasts. Her breath catches.
Azula strips off her own clothes without a second thought.
They study each other, the new scars, the newness, the newness, as if they had never slept with each other before.
Slowly, they both look at the bed. Ty Lee walks to Azula and cautiously touches her back. It makes the Fire Lord jump, the back of her hand stopping just short of Ty Lee's face.
"Never sneak up on me."
"I'm sorry." Ty Lee kisses her cheek, takes her hand, and interlaces their fingers.
Azula guides them both to the bed, where they lie down on the soft satin sheets, smiling, smiling for the first time since the crash.
They begin to kiss, begin to explore each other's bodies. But Ty Lee touches a scar on Azula and she sits up, covering herself with the ruby sheets.
Ty Lee sits beside her. "What is it?"
"Nothing you need to know," murmurs Azula.
Ty Lee begins to softly rub her back in sweeping circles.
"Let me get your chi fixed, my love."
After a lengthy silence, "I'm broken," whispers Azula, and then, more loudly, she demands, "How am I supposed to lead this nation to a bright, shiny future?"
Ty Lee's hands freeze in place. She says, "Bright, shiny futures are overrated anyway."
The girls meet each other's gaze and their lips slowly gravitate together into a soft kiss.
They lie down and, without another word or touch, fall asleep side by side.