EFFLORESCE
Effloresce (v.) to bloom.
When Ty Lee and three of her sisters left to be seeded into Caldera high society, the others said their goodbyes, but one lingered.
"Don't ever stop being the happy girl, the girl who loves too much, the girl who believes in magic. Stay as her forever."
Ty Lee promised.
Years later, when Azula asked her out at last and they began the frantic, passionate, adolescent sex, Ty Lee thought perhaps she was not looking to fulfill that promise.
She had another promise to herself, to stay the happy, contented, so-much-in-love, vibrant Ty Lee she had become in the arms of a dragon.
Then the Boiling Rock came.
And when she and her lost love met again, Ty Lee found Azula had not stayed as the person she once was nor did she become the person she intended to be.
"I want you to stay away from me, stay in your happy little daydreams and stay on your damned island. Forever."
Ty Lee tried but could not forget what she had seen. So she broke the promise, quit her job as a Kyoshi Warrior and returned to Azula (on palace house arrest).
"I thought I told you to leave."
"I tried to, but I couldn't. From this moment on I'm going to stay…" She had an entire speech in mind, bits and pieces, all of the things she was going to stay as from now on. "I'm moving a little ways away to live with my mother, but I'm going to stay here in the Fire Nation."
For as long as it takes to get you to love me again, went unsaid.
"You are going to… stay?"
Ty Lee first thought it was sarcasm and mockery. But then she saw that elusive and rare genuine look in Azula's eyes.
"I am going to stay."
And so it was.
Today is beautiful. Nature faces the transitional phase between seasons. Sunshine, crisp air still tainted by the cold of spring, birds singing, and summer longing on the wind.
Ty Lee wakes in Azula's bed and walks gently through the palace with her tea, sipping it softly as she tries to find a good place to spy on her fiancée's Sunrise Meditation and training.
On mornings like these, Azula reminds Ty Lee of sunflowers. She never would tell the princess, who would take it as a great offense to be compared to anything she considered lesser than a hurricane or a wildfire.
But when Ty Lee was very young and her family still lived in the countryside, before she transferred to the Ladies Academy and formally entered high society, they had a vast field of sunflowers around their property.
Beautiful, dignified, following the sun with such patient devotion.
Azula is in the midst of training Ty Lee's first and only child. Before she rekindled her relationship with Azula, she had a one night stand with a muscular pro firebender she met at a party. And nine months later the only person she could ever love more than Princess Azula was born.
They got together when Usagi was three. Ty Lee did not think Azula would ever accept her daughter, or let the jealousy subside.
Then, one morning, Usagi bent fire for the first time.
And Azula volunteered to instruct a child she previously loathed. The princess had previously insisted that if Ty Lee wanted to keep her love, she had to keep Usagi out of sight, but she suddenly started to bring gifts for Usagi when she came to visit Ty Lee, to talk to the child.
The same child who, for the accident of being tragically born out of wedlock meant Azula refused to even contemplate marriage.
Then Usagi presented her firebending and two days later Azula proposed. Maybe it was rushed due to royal tradition of a prince or princess being married by their twentieth birthday but they both see it as a good thing.
Only one issue remains between them as the wedding rapidly approaches.
Last night, their fight could have sold tickets.
"Why is the adoption even of importance to you?" demands Azula. "I don't need to be the mother of your daughter to be married to you. I'm marrying you, not you and Usagi."
"I see us… I see us as a package deal," admits Ty Lee, wringing her hands as she tries to stay out of lightning range.
Azula huffs. "Well, I do not, and it is my decision. She may be a talented firebender but she is not a princess, nor is she made of the material to be one."
It takes every ounce of courage in Ty Lee's body to say what she says next. "I disagree. I don't have the material to be a princess either. But I have the material to be your wife and I believe — I think — well y'know I think — I think she absolutely has the material to be your daughter."
"I don't intend to adopt her. I'm royalty. I must be selective in matters like lineage. Why should I ever believe you when you claim this is a good idea?"
"Princess, I need your trust."
"There have been times when that was in very short supply between us."
"We've… we've been through a lot. I hope it's made us stronger."
"It is simple, and I need you to wrap your small mind around it. She does not have royal blood, and never has someone of common blood become a princess. I will marry you, but Usagi will never be my daughter. This topic is petty and unimportant and I suggest you drop it."
"You want my answer of why this matters so much to me? My real answer? Because I want a family with you and this is our only way!"
"Perhaps I don't want a family with you. I am not a mother, I do not want to be a mother, and I certainly do not want a child no matter who it is with! I am her firebending instructor and her mother's wife, nothing more, and that is final."
Ty Lee is too frightened by the outburst to argue further, even though words of anger and pain swell in her throat. She may be braver and bolder after living on her own, Kyoshi Island, the Earth Kingdom, the rural Fire Nation, but she still fears Azula, just as any wise person does.
But she does not give up.
She cannot give up.
At least not yet.
And this morning, she still has not,
This morning, she still has hope.
[X]
In the last few minutes of today's training, as Ty Lee spies from afar, Azula coldly informs Usagi, "Hit every target and I will take you to the gardens as a reward."
For someone who can destroy any flower by accident in an instant, Usagi loves the palace garden. Ursa's garden. A place Azula hates to go. Ozai let it die, become overgrown, but when Zuko became Fire Lord he had it restored to its former glory.
Usagi easily succeeds. Ty Lee may have conceived the bastard child with a second rate professional firebender with an allegedly muscular build and apparently decent hair she met at a party, but her bending somehow managed to turn out impressive despite her inferior blood. Azula refused again and again to instruct firebending, but for a prodigy belonging to her love, she made a wise exception.
They meander to the garden in silence and Usagi admires the flowers with the bright, shiny smile she inherited from her mother. Azula plucks flowers and burns them one by one.
Usagi falls to her knees in front of a stretch of cinquefoil. She starts digging it up with hands that Azula knows need to feel fire, not earth.
"What in Koh's Realm are you doing?" demands Azula, face contorted in disgust and confusion.
"I been making a little garden outside my room. I'm moving this. I gotta bring it up at the roots or it'll die."
"Oh."
They are silent for a moment as Usagi finishes digging up her prize. She glances at the tangled, filthy roots and then up at her mother's fiancée.
"We don't have roots."
"What?" Azula blinks.
"We don't have roots. That's why you're still not sure you want me to be your daughter."
The perceptive nature of children never fails to surprise. They always know who loves them, and who just pretends.
"I am going to make you a firebender as good as myself. That should be adequate for you."
"If I can't be your daughter, can I be your friend?"
"I don't need a five year old friend. And you certainly do not need me in your life beyond our lessons."
"What if I want you in my life?"
"Then you're a fool like your mother."
The conversation ends.
[X]
At this year's Fire Festival, Azula and Ty Lee stand at the edge of the illuminated bridge watching Usagi play with her friends at the bank of a shimmering stream. Ty Lee eats fire gummies one by one, examining each candy before she puts it into her mouth.
"What are you thinking about?" asks Azula.
Ty Lee strokes Azula's arm, leaving goosebumps in her fingertips' trail. She kisses Azula on the neck and then smiles wistfully as she recounts, "Do you remember that bonfire we built with Mai out in Sozin Park? It was the last day of summer before we graduated and the three of us split up."
"Of course I do." It used to be a good memory. After the Boiling Rock it became painful and stayed that way.
"We made a blood oath."
"So?" Azula does not like where this is going.
"We said it would make our children siblings. It would make our kids have shared blood."
Azula grabs Ty Lee's wrist and turns her to lock eyes. She says with glacial fire in her eyes and voice, "I told you to drop this."
And Ty Lee does, as much as she does not want to.
At least for tonight.
[X]
Ty Lee wants to embrace her halcyon home of the palace, but Usagi does not. She likes nothing but the garden and the garden alone. And the little one she has been constructing outside of their quarters.
But she shamefully forgets about Usagi for a few minutes as she finds herself in the midst of making out with her fiancee while they keep an eye on Usagi playing outside in the gardens, sitting on the edge of the fountains patting turtleducks and weaving flower crowns from weeds.
The touch of Azula's lips feel like lightning, the embrace like a hearth on a cold Kyoshi Island night. Ty Lee falls into it until she is dizzy. It breaks long, long before either woman wants it to.
"Would you change it?" abruptly asks Azula when their kiss breaks and they step apart, still lightly holding hands. "Getting pregnant by accident."
"Well, yeah. I mean, wouldn't trade Usagi for the whole world, but I wish I had waited or had more time. But she's amazing and I'm so grateful that I have her."
"You always talked about a perfect little family. This is nothing like what you wanted."
"Families aren't perfect. Kids aren't perfect. Mothers aren't perfect. I just had to accept that's how it is. I just didn't stop being happy about what I had, and loving freely and loving everyone in my life and loving her imperfectly 'cause that's the only way a mom can, and believing in a magic that makes things work out as they should."
"I suppose what people want changes," says Azula without thinking. She wants to throttle herself after letting those words escape her lips.
"It does," cautiously says Ty Lee.
"For example, I once wanted an empire, and now I want to restore my country and reform it into something better. I hated you for betraying me, and now I look forward to marrying you." Those things are true, and they also distinctly do not include Usagi ever becoming her daughter.
She watches the girl run about in her flower crown, a trail of turtleducks following her eagerly.
Usagi wears a crown but will never be royalty, if Azula has her way (and she always does).
[X]
The next morning at sunrise, Usagi wears one of her flower crowns to training.
Before they even begin the sunrise meditation, Azula remarks, "Those crowns of yours are lovely," and she genuinely means it.
Usagi chirps in an admiring tone so like Ty Lee's when she was that age, "I can teach you to make them."
"Fine. We can go to the gardens and today you can teach me something before we begin training. But I will prolong our session."
Usagi knows she should pretend to be disappointed, but she loves the idea of a longer session. When Azula sees that, she forces herself to look away. She does not want to adore or admire anything about this child whom is a mistake.
Usagi makes hers of daffodil, heliotrope and petunia. Azula finds the three flowers Ursa liked least. Even hated. Bay leaf, striped carnation and black poplar.
The little girl and grown princess sit for some time as Usagi gently and sweetly teaches Azula to weave a glorious crown of flowers.
She sees the eager and proud smile Ty Lee has when she executes a flawless gymnastics move in the smile Usagi wears when she presents her crown and sets it in her own head. She waits for Azula to do the same, still beaming brightly.
But her smile vanishes when Azula lights her own crown on fire and watches it burn.
It looks lovely as it burns in blue.
But the reflection on Usagi's crestfallen expression does not.
[X]
Things with Mai have been nothing but icy for Azula, and she is fine with that. They will never be friends again and both have accepted it. Unfortunately, since the proposal, the iciness stretches to Ty Lee as well.
In the evening, after dinner, Ty Lee sits down on the table across from the sofa where Mai lounges, eyeing both Ty Lee and Azula coolly and cautiously. Ty Lee takes both of Mai's hands in hers and says, "I wanted to ask if you would carry my candle in the wedding."
Mai almost laughs. As much as she loves Ty Lee, she does not want to play such a significant role in Azula's wedding. "Don't you have like eighty sisters?"
"I want it to be you. You mean more to me and my heart than any of them do. I want you to be the one to carry my candle, just like I've wanted since I was a kid."
Mai groans. "Fine. I'll do it, but don't expect me to enjoy it."
Ty Lee embraces an unwilling Mai and kisses her on the cheek.
"It's going to be a good, royal wedding. Maybe you will enjoy it." Ty Lee smiles and bats her eyelashes. It does not suck Mai in like it would for most.
Mai waves a dismissive, pallid hand. "Weddings are boring. I suppose marriages themselves are fine until the couple eventually gets tired of each other."
Ty Lee scowls, hurt. "Why do you assume that they will?"
"Don't couples always get tired of each other?" remarks Mai. "That's why they have children."
"I'd keep that out of your candlebearer speech at the reception," snarks Azula. That ends the conversation when Mai wrinkles her nose bitterly.
Ty Lee takes Azula's hand and gently squeezes it, letting her know she wants to escape the situation but does not know how.
Azula grabs her tightly and strides out of the room with her. She does not say a single word.
Spirits, Ty Lee admires her like she does no one else.
As they walk down the hall, Azula says coolly, "I don't know why you even thought our wedding would please her."
"You're right, princess. Nothing pleases Mai," says Ty Lee with a scowl.
"That isn't true." Azula smirks, a glint in her eyes.
"Huh?"
"It pleases her to say that nothing pleases her."
Ty Lee laughs.
[X]
The wedding will arrive in a week's time, the day before Princess Azula's twentieth birthday. She has to be married by then, according to the traditions of the Fire Nation royal family. Ty Lee only wishes Azula had proposed sooner. They would have more time to prepare.
Iroh comes from Ba Sing Se, a royal duty of his, but he would have attended anyway. Perhaps he never understood Azula, but he understands that Ty Lee is good for her and marriage is always a joyous occasion.
"Where is Azula?" he asks Ty Lee after a sweet but brief greeting.
"In the gardens with Usagi. I mean, she says she's training her in firebending and she is but they always end up in the gardens eventually."
"Azula burned them down once, in anger towards her mother."
"I know. I was with her when she did it." Pause. Ty Lee stares at her perfectly manicured feet. "She said her mother cried for days."'
Iroh says calmly, "Did you know that some trees need wildfire to release their seeds? It takes a fire for them to open up and be reborn."
Exactly what Ty Lee needs. Cryptic advice.
"Azula doesn't want to be Usagi's mother." Ty Lee does not know why she blurted it out. Something about Iroh's presence just makes it too easy to confess deep thoughts.
"Did you ask her to be?"
"More than once. But I guess I have to compromise this time."
"You shouldn't. And certainly not with something so clearly important to your heart."
"We're about to get married and marriage is about compromise. Everybody says that."
"With compromise," says Iroh, "you both lose. You must collaborate on the best possible solution."
"I don't think she agrees with me about the best solution."
Iroh sees through it like a freshly cleaned window. "Do you still fear her, after all this time?"
Ty Lee's silence and downcast gaze speak volumes.
[X]
That same afternoon, when Azula strides into her brother's living chambers to discuss the new trade policy and blacksmithing taxes, she finds he simply must be holding his one-year-old daughter Izumi.
"I was so scared about Izumi," immediately says Zuko, of course. He never learned to know better than to meddle in her affairs.
"I'm not scared!" Azula wishes she had not been so fierce in saying that. She clenches her fist in anger at herself.
He continues as if she did not protest. "But once I overcame my fear, I realized that she is the best thing that ever happened to me."
"Usagi would never be the best thing to ever happen to me, that much I know. And I would be the worst thing to happen to her if I became more than her instructor and the woman sleeping with her mom. I'd poison her and you know it."
"Being worried about damaging her is how good parents think."
"I am being wise. And it would be wise of you to shut up about this."
"You're scared, Azula. You're scared and I see it. But you're not scared of Usagi, or getting married. You're scared that you won't be a perfect mother, and in your eyes, being imperfect is the same as failure."
"I will take that offensive and presumptuous psychoanalysis under advisement."
"You're choosing to marry a woman, and I'm not surprised, but adopting Usagi is the only easy or reasonable way you can actually have a family. A family with Ty Lee. Do you want one?"
"Yes. But not now, not like this. I am not ready for a family."
"No one ever is."
Azula leaves without any regard for the important political situations she came to discuss.
[X]
Azula and Ty Lee do not share a room. Not yet, not until the wedding. But they stand on the balcony of Azula's bedroom tonight. They gaze at the stars, sometimes kiss, mostly just linger near each other.
"If you don't want a family with me… I would understand. I'll stay with you no matter what."
"I do want a family with you! I have since I was fourteen years old! But it was never supposed to be like this!"
"How was it supposed to be?" demands Ty Lee, getting too loud and too bold for Azula's liking.
Azula falls silent before declaring in utter earnest, "Perfect. Our family is supposed to be perfect. Me and you and your bastard child from a previous relationship while I was suffering alone is not perfect. Far from it."
"Motherhood is imperfect. You don't like imperfect, and I get that. You're a genius, and beautiful, and good at pretty much everything. But nobody is a prodigy at being a parent. And if that's the reason, I understand."
"That is not the reason," lies Azula.
The words of Ty Lee's sister echo in her mind as she swallows her tears of frustration. "Don't ever stop being the happy girl, the girl who loves too much, the girl who believes in magic. Stay as her forever."
"I'm really happy to be with you. I'm really happy you're training Usagi and letting her live here. Even when I hated you I loved you. So, I'm happy to marry you no matter what, and I think one day maybe Usagi will become our kid. Because I think you love me enough to love Usagi too even if you're not ready to admit it all the way yet."
"Your hopes are in vain. And I have no idea why you dare to assume I would ever cave in to your petty and unnecessary demands. Why do you even dare to bring this up yet again?"
"Because I love you more than I fear you," insists Ty Lee.
And maybe love really is the only thing in the world stronger than fear.
Azula wonders if she loves Ty Lee enough to overcome her own.
[X]
In the evening, lounging with her brother after a taxing conversation about taxes, he takes his daughter from Mai, ready to settle her into bed. Azula stares, trying not to seem as interested in his gentle touch as she is.
And then he says words she despises. "Would you like to hold Izumi?"
"Yes," she says before she can stop herself. A look of shock briefly flickers across his face before he hands his daughter to her.
Azula holds the tired infant as it grasps at her hair and wriggles in her lap. Finally, Izumi calms in her arms and settles down.
Zuko takes a few steps closer and says, "I may have denounced father. I may try to forget him. But when I parent, I guess I feel him in me. I can't help it. I can't change that."
"Perhaps he is not the parent I am concerned about."
"I never said he was."
Azula strokes Izumi's raven hair as the little girl's eyes droop.
[X]
Azula visits Usagi's garden for the first time today.
It stuns her.
She never knew a child could create something so beautiful. That anyone could. Azula only ever knew how to destroy.
Azula can identify the flowers and plants and hates herself for it. She hates that she still remembers anything her mother taught her, but she sees the names in her mind as she looks at the blooms Usagi cultivated. Moss, cinquefoil, camellia, aster, crocus, dittany, goldenrod, honeysuckle, lavender, pansy, primrose, sorrel, wisteria, yarrow…
A tiny child sneaks up behind her as she gazes at the remarkable garden.
"Do you like it?" chirps Usagi, beaming her mother's smile.
"It's beautiful," admits Azula.
"Do you like me?"
"You are a very exceptional firebender, a clever girl, and this garden is quite impressive." They are the words Azula would want to hear from her mother, but Usagi cannot hide an expression of disappointment. It makes Azula want to burn this whole place down, but she restrains herself.
"Thanks!" She sounds just like her mother.
And Azula remembers her thoughts before the eclipse. That night she slept with Ty Lee for the first time. She made a promise Ty Lee did not let her fulfill. Azula said Ty Lee would be Fire Lady.
And even though she knew it was impossible, she dreamed of children with Ty Lee's cheer and her stunning firebending.
She dreamed of a child not unlike Usagi.
But two women having children is impossible, and Usagi is not Azula's blood, no matter what Ty Lee claims about that silly oath with the two of them and Mai by the river in Sozin Park.
Usagi starts tending to the flowers.
Azula drifts away to go meditate with a few candles.
[X]
"Don't ever stop being the happy girl, the girl who loves too much, the girl who believes in magic. Stay as her forever."
Ty Lee struggles with that request today. She has spent the whole day on preparations for the wedding. She sticks to what she promised Azula. She will stay no matter what happens, no matter how much she knows Azula judges her for the very existence of Usagi.
This wedding is making her happier than anything has in a long time.
But the situation with Usagi is making her sadder than anything has in a long time.
She loves too much, yes.
But she does not believe Azula will magically change her mind. No magic in the world could be strong enough to do that at this point.
Azula steps inside just as Ty Lee is musing about her.
"Tiring day, wasn't it?" asks Azula, confidently and smoothly leaning against the doorway. Ty Lee finds the stance unbelievably sexy.
"I do like the wedding planning, but you're right, princess, I'm exhausted." Ty Lee smiles.
Azula advances, and without another word passionately kisses her fiancée. Ty Lee wraps her fingers in Azula's hair leaning in deeper and deeper until she can no longer fight the need to breathe.
"I'm looking forward to calling you mine," whispers Azula as the kiss breaks.
"I'm already yours," whispers Ty Lee. "I always have been."
As Azula smirks, Ty Lee smiles brightly. It is the smile Usagi has when she executes a firebending move several times above her predicted level.
Azula hates how much she sees Ty Lee in Usagi and Usagi in Ty Lee.
It almost makes her want to stitch together a broken family with the woman she loves.
[X]
On Azula's balcony again beneath the thousand diamond stars again, this time not kissing or touching once, Ty Lee takes a deep breath and summons every tiny ounce of courage in her body.
"I want to talk to you about Usagi." She runs out of breath after that one sentence. Her stomach churns with terror as Azula's eyes violently flash.
"Ty Lee…" warns Azula with her teeth bared, looking like a venomous animal preparing to strike.
But Ty Lee loves her more than she fears her.
"I promise this is the last time," rapidly says Ty Lee, stumbling over her words. "This is the very last time and then I'll accept your decision and drop it."
"You should have accepted my decision immediately." Azula frowns.
"I know. That would be wiser, but this is close to my heart, and I wanted to try. I wanted to try, Azula, and I hope you find it in you to not hate me for that. I think you two just need to learn each other. It's hard, but I can't even explain how totally worth it that it is.""
"Our history should have taught you that it takes a good deal for me to hate you, Ty Lee, but I am annoyed by all of this. Annoyance can become anger. And I am not pleasant when I am angry. You know that."
"This time is different. This time I'm asking based on Usagi, not based on me wanting to have a family with you. She loves you, she admires you, she never shuts up about your firebending lessons and talks all about your history as a military leader like it's the coolest thing she's ever heard. She even goes on and on about your hair and how she wants hers to be similar."
"But it never will be. Because she is not my blood. She has the hair of a man you chose for a one night stand while I rotted in an asylum."
Ty Lee steps a little closer to Azula and cocks her head to the side. "Your eyes change when you lie. Just a tiny bit that most people would never notice."
"All of what I said is factual," coldly, crisply insists Azula. And she is technically right.
Ty Lee daringly whispers, "But it's not what you're thinking that you want to say."
"You're dreaming, Ty Lee. I'm not a mother, and she doesn't deserve to be my daughter. She's a good kid, a good firebender, kind like you but stronger. She doesn't deserve me as a mother. Try for once to think about what's best for your child than your ego-trip of wanting your family with me and a princess for a baby."
Ty Lee offers what she knows will be her final plea, because after this, she will just accept whatever Azula decides. "She deserves the best. You're the best. You can't be perfect for her, but nobody else can be either."
Azula averts her eyes.
She makes her decision, and is scared to admit she is happy with it.
[X]
In the morning, Azula does something she rarely does; she wakes before the sun. She walks to her mother's garden and starts plucking roses, the most beautiful, most red and orange, ones she can find. And as Usagi taught her, she weaves them into a glorious crown of dignified flame.
She finds her fiancée's — she finds her — daughter digging up a plant by the roots.
"A muddy outfit like that is unbecoming of a princess," says Azula.
"But I'm not a princess."
"After the wedding you will be. I will adopt you the day after your mother and I are wed."
"I will be…" Usagi screeches and reminds Azula of Ty Lee yet again. She embraces Azula, head on Azula's navel, again unbecoming of a princess but forgivable in these circumstances. "You want me to be your daughter?"
"Yes." Azula takes a slow breath. "I do. But, unfortunately, you are missing something vital."
"What?" Usagi asks nervously, unable or unwilling to conceal her crushed expression.
Azula holds up the flowers she wove in a circle.
"A crown."
Azula sets the flower crown on Usagi's head.
Usagi beams at her and adjusts it. Azula watches her, suppressing a smile as royalty should.
One day Usagi and Azula would learn each other, and Azula would learn to love Usagi like a mother loves a daughter.
Imperfectly, and without roots.
end