A/N: I loved you with a fire red, now it's turning blue. Love and be loved. Read… and review!
Fear Me
Azula stops outside a door. There is a fire in her eyes. There is a fury in her pulse. She will take everything from them.
Click
Woosh
The door unlocks and opens suddenly. Confusion sweeps across the people inside, as this is not the right time. The guards had just changed shifts not long ago. There shouldn't be a new one for a while now. The light floods the room and blinds the occupants.
The brightness dims and their eyes adjust until all that remains is the vision of the Crown Princess, with her hands on her hips, her silhouette perfectly framed by the doors opening. Her face finally comes into view and it is not a pleased one. She steps into the room.
"Leave us," she commands.
"But Princess-"
"I already told you once. If I have to tell you again…"
Hastily the guard stands and skirts out of the room, being sure to avoid bumping the Crown Princess. Once out in the hallway, they find that the hallway guard has already been dismissed as well. They set off to find their compatriot.
Woosh
Ty Lee sits up straight and looks up at the girl as the door shuts behind her. The first thing she notices is that her aura is blood red. She wasn't sure if this moment would ever come again. It's only been a few days, but every minute had left her to wonder. A part of her always doubted the last time they saw each other would be at the Boiling Rock, but now Azula has unceremoniously arrived without fanfare or warning. All the same, Ty Lee knew what she would say. She's had all this time to think about it after all.
She summons all of her remaining perkiness not destroyed by the solitary confinement and greets her guest, "You found me."
Azula furrows her brow at this comment. She placed it immediately in the lexicon of their relationship. It was chosen to incise her from the start. Ty Lee has set the terms of the engagement. Anything Azula says from here is just matching that starter.
When she says nothing, Ty Lee quips again, "I thought you said you were gonna put me somewhere so that you'd never have to see my face again?"
Azula finally returns serve, "I've come here to bury you, not to see you."
'Bury me?' Ty Lee wonders if this means that Azula has come to kill her. She tries to shake it off. She sits up on her knees and speaks with a sweetness in her voice. "I hear congratulations are in order? Rumor has it you're to become the Fire Lord."
The act of taunting her captor comes to a surprising halt as Ty Lee says sincerely, "It's everything you ever wanted."
Ty Lee sighs as the mean girl in her fades. She can't keep deriding Azula. She is too relieved that she has come at all. The Crown Princess scoffs, "Don't pretend to act proud now. I know what you really think of me."
She pauses and swallows. She speaks the words she has thought for so long, "You think I'm a monster."
"I'm not like other people. I'm... built different."
Ty Lee struggles to stand up, her hands tied up with rope so she can't chi block anyone. She gets up and approaches the bars separating them. She pleads with her, "I think you're confused."
Azula stares right at her, arms crossed, tense. Ty Lee continues, "All of your life you've used fear to control everyone around you, like Mai and Zuko."
"But fear… it's all I've ever known. I don't know how to be different."
Azula waves her arms and approaches the cell. Furious she shoots back, "Well what choice do I have? Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way."
This final thought lingers in her mind a moment. She concludes, "Even you fear me."
'Fear her? She thinks that I fear her?'
Ty Lee's eyes grow hot instantly. They sting and become watery. She begins crying softly.
"No. I love you, Azula. I do."
Ba-thump Ba-thump
She finally has the courage to admit what she has always felt. She does it locked in a cage, thrown in there by the girl she is confessing to at last.
Azula's own eyes water. She violently shakes her head. She doesn't even love herself, she can not comprehend someone else loving her.
Ba-thump Ba-thump
'How could somebody ever love me?'
"I AM A MONSTER, TY LEE!" She screeches.
Ty Lee shakes her head in disagreement. This only serves to further infuriate Azula. Her eyes sting as loose tears spill with each violent movement of her head.
She pounds her fist against her chest with each new sentence and shouts, "I am the thing you should fear always. I am the thing that will destroy you. I defeated the Avatar. I conquered Ba Sing Se. I saved the Fire Nation from the Black Sun. I control the Dai Li, the Imperial Firebenders, the Fire Sages, the prison guards, the palace servants. I will sit on the throne. I will be the Fire Lord."
Huff huff
Ba-thump Ba-thump
She pants shallow breaths. She bows her head and stares at the prisoner with a furrowed brow. The pain and rage mix on her face as she struggles to control her emotions.
Ty Lee shakes her head like a disappointed parent. Fresh tears come. She motions to her own chest and heart, in spite of her binds, "Well, I will never be afraid of you, Azula. I will never fear you. And I will never be afraid of the feelings I have for you."
She presses her bound hands to her heart. Teary eyes stare into one another, distorting the familiar colors that each girl has previously sought shelter within. Azula scowls and shakes her head dismissively. She looks away, unable to look her in the eye as she says, "We were just friends, Ty Lee."
Azula had wanted this comment to hurt and it works marvelously. Ty Lee can't hide the pain on her own face as she spits back, "'Just friends' don't do what we did."
Ty Lee knows she is trying to create space between them. That's why she is here now. 'To bury you' is what she said. She doesn't have it in herself to go with grace.
'I won't let her.'
"I see you, Azula. And you see me. I know you like no one else in the world. Sometimes I think I know you better than I know myself."
'In the Fire Nation, little girls like little boys.'
'The touch of the sun.'
'Kill the girl. Become the woman.'
"You don't know everything about me." Azula concludes, looking away.
"Everyone except for Zuko, they've always kept me at arm's length… Like I'm some animal in a cage."
"I know that your entire life, everyone has taken things from you!" Ty Lee says with steely resolve.
"Taken? From me?" Azula is incredulous and her eyes fall again on the brunette. "No one has taken anything from me. I have taken things. With fire and blood, I have taken my birthright and everything I ever deserved."
Ty Lee steps back and stares in disbelief. She wonders if Azula truly means it or if she is just being defensive. She replies, "No, Azula. They've stolen everything from you."
Azula shakes her own head in pity and disregard. "You're out of your mind."
Ty Lee steps up to the prison bars again. She pleads with the Princess, "It doesn't have to be like this, Azula. You don't have to be like this."
"Oh? I don't? Sorry, please enlighten me, what could I be like instead? Like you?"
The way these last two words come out belie exactly what Azula means them to say. She is drawing a line in the sand and saying that they are on different sides. Ty Lee knows they are not and shakes her head in disgust.
Azula asks her, "Tell me, did you think we were just going to run away? Just leave all of this behind? Get a little home in the Earth Kingdom together? Hmm? How did you think this was going to end? And how did betraying me play into those plans?"
Ty Lee tries to remain strong. Every word cut like a knife in between the bones. Each one an assault on her heart. She does not shed tears now, but she hurts all the same. She shudders and says, "I did it to protect you. So you wouldn't push Mai away forever."
Azula sneers and looks away again. "My father wants me to execute you."
She intentionally dangles this. Ty Lee's breath catches in her throat. She can't swallow and her mouth feels dry. Her tongue becomes like sandpaper, her teeth sharp and cutting. She steps back from the cell bars.
"But that would be too easy. Your punishment must be more severe."
The feeling doesn't go away for Ty Lee. Knowing her life won't end doesn't change anything. Azula approaches the cage. Now she grips the bars and leers.
"I'm going to throw you in a hole in the earth. Where no one will ever find you," she tells her. "You'll spend the rest of your life wondering if anyone will come and save you. You'll hope for it every single day. But no one will ever come."
There's a pause. Ty Lee stares out into space, trying to swallow, trying to breathe. Azula whispers to her, "You will never be found again. You will never rise from the ashes of your shame and humiliation."
A hole springs in Ty Lee's facade. Loose tears roll down her cheeks, smudging her face. Azula sticks her with a proverbial knife in the heart. She speaks slow and deliberately now, her voice so low that Ty Lee almost has to strain to hear her.
"There will be no little red door. There will be no lemon tree by your window. You will not know the seasons. You will only know darkness."
The dam breaks. Ty Lee sobs as Azula twists the knife in a way only she could. She leans against the back wall, creating space between them. She falls to the floor and lies in a heap, the heartache ravaging her. Azula wears a look of disgust.
"Look at you. You're like a wounded animal. Alone, in the dark, locked up, crying," she says. "Killing you would be too easy, when you're already dead to me."
Ty Lee hears these last few words and almost laughs at the hypocrisy.
"If I'm 'dead to you,' then why are you here?"
Azula leans against the bars now and rolls her eyes. She averts them so as to not look at her. "I told you already, I came to bury you. I wanted to see a coward in their rightful place."
Something builds in the chest of the broken girl on the ground. She looks up at the soon to be Fire Lord with a fire deeper than blue. She scrambles to her feet and rushes to the bars that separate them. She presses her face right up to them. They stand inches apart, even if they are separated by the cage.
"Huh!" She shouts and looks up. Her golden eyes rise and meet the teary grey-brown ones.
"You're the true coward, Azula."
'Me? A coward? Does she want to die?'
The rage rises up from Azula's stomach right into her chest. This is the moment she has been waiting for, a chance at revenge. To collect her pound of flesh. She looks to the wall and sees the keys dangling. She grabs them.
Click
Woosh
BANG!
The cell door clatters when she throws it open. She doesn't wait for it to open fully before moving in. Ty Lee puts her tied hands up but Azula shoves her back. She goes further into the corner. Ty Lee doesn't have the ability or the strength to resist. Azula smacks her bound hands down and grabs the girl by the collar.
FLOOM
The heat races through Azula's heart and veins. She ignites a fireball and holds it inches from Ty Lee's face. The heat radiates and burns her cheeks. It should be blinding. Ty Lee fears nothing. Not the fireball. Not Azula. Neither one blinks.
Ba-thump Ba-thump
"GIVE ME A REASON!" Azula yells wildly at her.
Ba-thump Ba-thump
A wicked smile spreads across Ty Lee's face. She whispers to her Princess.
"You can banish me forever. Put me in the ground and bury me deep. But at least I'll go into the abyss knowing who I am and how I feel about you," the blue flame reflects off her eyes and Azula stares into it. "Can you say the same?"
Ba-thump Ba-thump
Azula looks at her by the light of her own fire. The image is so familiar. The streaks down her cheeks, the redness of her eyes. She searches those grey-brown eyes. The ones she stared into for what feels like most of her life. She looks down at Ty Lee's lips as they quiver and her breath pants.
Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump Ba-thump
Suddenly, the fire goes out and shrouds them in darkness. Azula pulls her in and their lips meet. Ty Lee's tied-up hands press against her abdomen and grip her shirt tightly. She wishes they were free so she could knit her fingers into the black hair. Azula leans her body in and pushes Ty Lee back further into the dusty corner. Their tongues lap over one another, their bodies flush against each other. One of Azula hands roams all over Ty Lee's back. Ty Lee's fingers untuck her shirt. Even tied up, she snakes them up under the shirt, but is stopped short by a mechanism in her armor. Azula lets out an involuntary, muffled moan.
They release and breathe shallow breaths. Azula has one hand on the small of Ty Lee's back and one on her collar. Ty Lee keeps her bound hands under Azula's shirt, her fingers flush against the warmth of her skin. Azula looks into her eyes. She feels the power ripping through her body. It beats in her chest and flows in her blood. A fire stronger than anything she has ever felt in her life. Electricity itself coursing through her veins.
Ba-thump Ba-thump
The realization of what she has done dawns on her like moonlight cutting through the night.
Ba-thump
She releases her grip on the brunette and steps back. Ty Lee's tied up hands fall in front of her. She smiles at first but as Azula steps back the smile fades. Azula's head swims in contradictions as she looks at the prisoner in her cell. Azula looks away. She looks towards the door. She steps out of the cell.
Woosh
Click
She stops after locking it but keeps her eyes down. Ty Lee approaches the cage bars. She begs her, "Azula. Azula, wait. Azula, dont."
The Child of Ozai turns away from the highborn daughter.
"Azula, stay. Azula, don't. Please."
The Seed of Sozin steps away from the former circus star.
"Azula come back. Please, Azula. Be with me."
The Future Fire Lord stops at the door while the prisoner sobs and pleads.
"Azula, please!"
Ty Lee wants to look into those golden eyes one last time. She wants to remember them before she goes into her hole in the Earth forever.
Woosh
Woosh
Click
Azula slips out the door and shuts it behind her. She exits without looking back or speaking another word. Out in the hallway, Azula leans against the wall. Her chest feels tight, making it hard to breathe. She can't believe what she's done. She needs to erase it from her memory. She needs to erase these feelings for Ty Lee from her heart.
'She's a traitor. She's in that cell, alone. She betrayed me. She is nothing.'
Azula feels that Ty Lee is an endless summer afternoon. In her mind, she is perpetually golden. Forever stuck in a fading daylight, picturesque and beautiful. The image burned into her brain from all those years ago has never left her. A little girl, offering her a pale-white flower, hidden in the shade of a world that was otherwise covered in the same colors. Azula must let her go. Let the image go. Let the memory go.
She steps away and leaves the hallway.
Ty Lee watches the door shut behind Azula and her knees buckle. She falls to the floor, and writhes on the ground, clutching her stomach. The anguish washes over her knowing that she may never see Azula again. That the last image she'll ever have of her is Azula's back to her, ignoring her cries for help, walking out on her.
She lies on the cell floor weeping when a voice whispers to her, "Are you alright, kid?"
She sobs as Wally talks to her. She wants to reply but she can't help herself. The pain comes in endless waves. Wally speaks again, "I heard most of that and I just… listen, I'm sorry for what I said before. I didn't know…"
Ty Lee never replies to Wally. Azula doesn't stop to tell the guards to return to their post, so no one comes for several hours. Ty Lee cries for most of that time. The hard feelings crystallize into a dead weight in her throat. She struggles to swallow and breathe.
As exhaustion sets in and Ty Lee's body begins to shut down, her mind rushes to find more positive memories to hold on to. She thinks about Ember Island and Auzla's bedroom. She goes back to all of their time together. She holds these memories close. They fill her heart with a pleasant warmth, a blanket covering her on the floor of her prison cell. It protects her as she drifts off to sleep.
Azula lies in the comfort of her Queen size bed for the last time as just the 'Crown Princess.' By this time tomorrow she will go to bed as "Fire Lord Azula." Her entire life's journey has brought her to this moment. Everything she has worked, fought, and hurt for is within her grasp. Yet Azula's mind is elsewhere.
She thinks about all the things she wants to forget. The way Ty Lee laughed and how she could still hear it in this very room, bouncing off of the walls. The brown of her eyes and the slightest tinge of grey that made them so distinct. How she was the only Fire Nation girl she'd ever met without gold eyes or black hair. How she found her. Awkwardly holding hands as they passed through the streets of Ba Sing Se without anyone knowing or caring about who they are. Putting makeup on each other. Unzipping her dress for her. Fireside chats after Mai went to sleep. Dancing in the streets. Watching her fall asleep. She thinks about all of these things so that she knows what she must forget. She thinks that forgetting them will help her to move on.
But just thinking about living without Ty Lee is lonely.
She rolls for hours trying to forget these things. She doesn't even realize as she finally fades off to sleep that she is holding on to these memories because of how much they mean to her. She doesn't want to forget them. She remembers them more vividly than she remembers anything else. They are more real to her than the very bed she lies in.
Azula shoots up from lying down. She breathes quick, successive breaths. She is covered in darkness. She feels soaking wet. Her clothes stick tightly to her, yet she still feels sweat running down her head and back. She clutches her blanket tightly and holds it against her. Her eyes dart around the room, trying to ensure she is not still falling from the sky. The same nightmare that has plagued her for so long.
'It is your destiny to fall.'
'The end of the Fire Nation.'
The chains around her arms and her neck.
'Now… fall.'
She looks up at the ceiling cautiously, fearing she will see Ty Lee's face fading amongst the clouds as she falls to her death. No such sight is to be seen above. She looks for any sign that she is still dreaming, that it is real. She finds none. She is alone.
She gets up and goes to her window. The rising twilight told her all that she needed to know. The sun is just below the horizon now.
The day has come.
A/N: This Chapter's OST is "Hard Feelings" by Lorde.
Love always. Tyzula forever.
Notorious