Azula hates falling— she always has, she hates the idea of losing yourself in something so much that you forget the ground underneath you, that you find yourself vulnerable. Azula is a lot of things but she is absolutely not vulnerable. She's amazing and she's a prodigy and she always, always wins.

The grade on her Literature paper is mocking her, staring her down, the letter 'D' written in blaring red ink across its top, and she hates that because she feels as though her favorite color or something has been dirtied by the grade. Comments mark the sides, her teacher's looping script— it's ugly, and imperfect, not like her uniform calligraphy— saying that she doesn't have a proper understanding of the text they're examining, that she needs to stop looking at the work through a purely pragmatic lens . . .

She hates Love Amongst the Dragons, and she hates that she's required to take this class for a degree in Business Management, and she absolutely, absolutely detests that she may get her first B in a class Zuko passed.

Azula briefly entertains the thought of texting or calling her brother and yelling at him, theater nerd and all that, but then she thinks about her therapist and how she's supposed to be channelling healthier coping mechanisms and picks up her empty cup of coffee and screams into it for a brief moment. She doesn't think she's loud but then the door to her dorm hastily opens and she puts it down and blushes.

"Azula?" Ty Lee asks, a little sweaty. She's dressed in a tight leotard, probably having just come back from gymnastics practice, and Azula ignores the way her friend— childhood friend— friend's skin almost glows warm when Ty Lee walks up next to her, leaning against her closet with an uncharacteristic frown. "Are you alright?"

Azula hates falling, and she hates losing herself, and she hates that words from Ty Lee— Ty Lee, who has always seemed to truly care about her, even when her mother left and Uncle took Zuko and she learned the worst of her father— make her lose all of her senses.

"I'm fine," she says, and only realizes when she's said the words that her throat is muffled. She coughs lightly and then feels tears come to the corner of her eyes and she doesn't know why it has to happen like this. Maybe it's her period on the horizon but the ugly grade and Ty Lee's smile and her warm body and the way she doesn't know whether she wants to commit arson or cry into her pillow right now . . . she's so confused.

"Oh no Azula, don't cry," Ty Lee says, and her grey eyes widen and then Azula is pressed closer into her warmth. It's a little gross, and sweaty, but it feels . . . feels nice. She doesn't know why she's . . .

"I'm not crying," she chokes out after a moment.

Ty Lee shuffles and presses her face a little to Azula's hair. Azula wants to smile, a bit, when she sees the long brown braid against her roommate's back. She remembers when they were children and Ty Lee had attempted to teach her how to braid and how it hadn't worked and how . . .

As though the acrobat reads her mind, her hands start shuffling through Azula's hair. "I know you're not," she replies to Azula's statement, as though to pacify her. It should be infantilizing, to have someone speak an objective untruth to her in order to make her feel better, but she needs it right now.

Azula also hates needing things. "I'm fine."

Ty Lee knows her very, very well. More than anyone else in the world, more than her brother and even their other friend Mai. And Ty Lee knows what Azula needs more than she does, because she is that part of her— like Azula is the hard, confrontational part of her. They shift a little and Ty Lee glimpses the ugly paper on Azula's hardwood desk.

"Oh," she says. "Are you having a hard time in that drama class?"

Azula opens her mouth and wants to deny something, to claim that she's not, but she can't. The words don't come, as though her brain is revolting against what it always has been (pragmatic, against weakness) and wants to be honest for once. Her therapist would be happy. She pulls away slightly, though even Ty Lee's sweat smells like flowers and she really does not want to, and quickly wipes the back of her hand across her face. "It's ridiculous," she ends up saying. "I did the essay and I looked at the rubric and did everything correct and she still said it wasn't good enough."

A few years ago Ty Lee would have responded to that by saying something about how she's Azula, she's obviously good enough, but they've grown past that toxicity, and instead she lays a comforting hand on Azula's arm. "Can you fix it?" she asks gently.

"I have one redo," she says miserably, and then tries to be as honest as she can be, "but I don't even know what to fix or what to write."

Ty Lee gets up for a moment and before Azula realizes it there's a bottle of water and a tissue in front of her, and the girl is looking at her apologetically. "We'll fix it, 'Zula, don't worry. I'm going to shower super quickly and then we'll figure it out!"

"Okay," Azula swallows. The crying has pressured her head, and she suddenly feels very tired and also as though she has a headache; lots of feelings, all at once. Before Ty Lee leaves, she mutters out into the room. "I think I'm going to take a Tylenol."

Before Ty Lee leaves she says "I trust you" and the words reverberate through Azula's chest. She takes one pill out of the bottle that Ty Lee keeps near her bed, just in case, and swallows it. Even though she knows it couldn't have worked she automatically feels better; she doesn't know if that's because of the pill or the honesty— the trust. She doesn't need to know.

Ty Lee takes quick showers so Azula once again reads over all the notes left on her essay, incomprehensible as they are, and tries to think about what she can change. She doesn't know quite what she needs to fix; she pulls the rubric up on her computer again and checks all the boxes she sees. Perhaps her teacher just dislikes her or is bitter because of Zuko or something . . . she doesn't know.

After a moment she puts the now-crumpled paper down and opens her email, checking items off her mental list. She schedules her next therapist appointment and sends out the agenda for the next meeting of Caldera's finance club. Then she lets herself go a little and slouches in her chair, letting herself escape, blurring out and staring out the window. She can see some students walking below the campus building in the dusky evening.

A couple walks by, holding hands, and her heart clenches. She's Azula, and she doesn't lie to herself— even if she's known to tell the occasional white lie to make a point or win something— and deep down inside she knows she has to face her feelings for her best friend. It's hard, so hard, to live your life and ups and downs with someone . . . particularly when she knows she was even more of an utter bitch to Ty Lee in high school, even though she'd done terrible things.

But Ty Lee has forgiven her and they've been roommates for three years, and while their relationship is not the same, not so one-sided, not so give-and-take, and it's better, Azula still feels like she will never be able to repent for the sins of her past. Ty Lee— perfect, bubbly, smart and affectionate and gorgeous Ty Lee— deserves so much better than her.

Ty Lee smells like the flower shop she works at, and she can make her body do anything— she's an absolutely skilled gymnast— and she has a strong urge to prove her individuality, to be more than one in a matched set. Once the others at high school; her brother and his abhorrent band of friends; had called her a circus freak and she'd stood up and said that was a compliment. And Azula knows it is. Truly, Azula thinks every part of Ty Lee is gorgeous.

Azula is so complicated, so confused, and just . . .

The door opens again, creaking a little as Ty Lee uses her key to come in. She looks bright and fresh, and Azula finds herself wondering what her skin would taste like, and her lips would taste like, but she ignores those feelings and stares resolutely out the window until a hand presses to her shoulder and calmly kneads out a knot she hadn't known existed. Magic hands.

"You haven't taken this class," Azula chokes out, trying to divert her mind from the scenarios it's indulging in. She can hear Ty Lee's light smile, the accepting one.

"Literature has always been one of my stronger subjects." She reaches out and grabs the paper, her light and dainty hands, painted pink at the top, smoothing it out. She pulls herself into a chair and presses against Azula, humming as she reads through the essay and the notes scribbled on it. The gesture is strange but Azula knows Ty Lee just wants the best for her.

"'Zula?"

Azula hates nicknames. She does. "Yes?"

"What was the prompt of this essay?" Ty Lee frowns a bit, "Exactly?"

"I don't quite recall," she thinks back. "I think it was supposed to be about what personal experiences Love Amongst the Dragons brought up and how it aligned with our cultural upbringing and thought process—"

"Right," she says. "So why didn't you do that?"

"I absolutely did," Azula feels a bit affronted. "I analyzed all the versions of the play my family has sponsored through the past one-hundred years, and they've differed with the level of integration—"

"No," Ty Lee interrupts calmly, "that's the problem." She points to a smudged line in the corner. "This isn't personal enough. That's all your teacher was asking for."

Azula huffs. "How can you even read that nonsensical script?" At Ty Lee's amused giggle, she leans in and tries to decipher it. Grudgingly, she admits it makes a bit of sense. "So I need to write about . . . what? The times I've seen the performance? I've already included the sixth rendition—"

"Most people in this class aren't from the royal family, you know. They're asking for personal experiences— how the story makes you feel," Ty Lee says calmly, as though she knows what Azula's reaction to that will be. She clenches up immediately, and Ty Lee reaches out and runs their fingers together. "Come on, 'Zula."

"I can talk about how the cultural atmosphere of Ember Island contributed . . ."

"'Zula," Ty Lee sighs. "I think this could be good for you."

"I don't want to talk about my mother to my professor," she complains in a way that is, somehow, at once both haughty and small. "I want to forget that, Ty Lee. I really do. I just—" she almost wants to scream. She would have before but she won't now because Ty Lee is here and she wants to be better than she was.

Her friend pushes against her, all flowers and soap and good things. "This is a beautiful essay," she says blatantly. "Your grammar is perfect and you probably fit the rubric perfectly."

"So what?"

"So that isn't the point. This is . . . I want to know about you, 'Zula. I want to know about what this means to you, and I want to feel something. I know you so well," her breath hitches for a moment, "and I know how beautiful your mind is, and I think it can create something that isn't perfect, but something that's gorgeous."

Ty Lee is everything good in the world. "I can't," Azula whispers. "I've lost almost everything good in my life."

"Almost everything?"

"Yes," her hazel irises beam into Ty Lee's and she feels elevated. Her heart beats against her chest in the weirdest way, as though she's just falling. "Remember that time— that time when we were nine or ten and you helped me sneak out."

"Yeah. My mom didn't realize I was gone and you . . ."

"And I'd gone to see the play with my family that day," Azula breathes tightly, "and we were on Ember Island, and you hadn't gotten to go because your parents were busy, but there was a late night performance—"

"And we snuck out and got mochi from your kitchen and then went to see the play," Ty Lee giggles. Her hair is out of its braid and slowly drying, curling up, and her cheeks are pink and blushing. "I didn't know you'd seen it before."

"It was better at night," Azula admits. "It felt good helping you see it. You loved it, loved the love story and the drama."

"Is that what you think about?" Ty Lee asks, her question hanging in the air. "When you think of the play?"

"I think about all the damn times I've seen that play and I think about the time it meant something," her voice drops, and she thinks honestly, and she also feels her heart in her feet. "I think about feeling something."

"I think that would get you an A," Ty Lee says, quietly. Her slightly tanned skin is smooth and Azula realizes she knows this because her hand is reaching out and pressing against the other girl's cheek, pressing a lock of hair behind her ear.

And then Azula stands as a crossroads, knowing she's in too deep and still afraid to fall. And then she thinks about what she wants and what she has and how Ty Lee always knows what she needs— and while she thinks and gets lost in her head Ty Lee leans into her, across the messy table, and presses their lips together, ever so gently. It's not monumental, or rough or hard, and it is not like anything Azula has ever experienced before.

It seems right.

"Thank you," Azula whispers, and then she leans into Ty Lee, hugging her, pressing them together where they start and end, thinking about new beginnings and perfection and everything she doesn't deserve but is willing to fall for.

originally written for for atla winter femslash week day one, a bit late! I shoved two prompts in there: First Kiss and College/University AU