.23. Charity
"Mai, I will take care of your baby," Ty Lee says, kneeling in front of her best friend slash sister-in-law. Her news was the most exciting news Ty Lee has ever heard in her whole life. "I will be like a second mother and a fun aunt and everything else amazing like that. I'm so good with babies! I will probably never have one. Will you have my baby?"
"No," Mai replies, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm not a charitable person and I hate being pregnant already. It was an accident that I ran with, like your entire marriage. Or a bad painting, I guess."
Ty Lee pretends not to understand that insult. Azula laughs from the shadows.
"I am being so nice to you all the time," Ty Lee snaps, crossing her arms, "even though maybe I hate you and you just don't know it."
Mai asks, "Do you hate me?"
"No. I love you so much." Ty Lee sets one hand over her heart for emphasis. Then she turns to her wife. "Azula, why are you still on the other side of the room?"
"Because I am a princess and you cannot tell me what to do," is a very common reply.
"Then go somewhere else," Mai says, although she does not care either way.
"I refuse to let Ty Lee be alone with a pregnant woman," Azula explains, despite not being asked to do so. "Why? Give her five minutes and she will want a baby. She already asked you to have her child. Can you imagine Mai's child? It would be a terrible failure and disappointment and I could never love it."
Ty Lee pivots on her knees and smiles at her wife. "We could steal Mai and Zuko's child and raise it."
"I'm leaving," says Mai.
"Me too," Azula adds.
Ty Lee sits alone after that.
That night, Ty Lee sits down on her and Azula's bed. She felt super excited about Mai and Zuko's baby announcement, but now she feels all weird. She cannot quite explain it.
"Are you angry that I didn't want to fawn over my brother's unborn child?" Azula demands, already tired of this. How dare he conceive a child. Does he not know how difficult this will make her life?
Ty Lee, her hopes unfortunately up, asks, "So, is it because it's Zuko's?"
"No," Azula snaps.
Ty Lee tries again, despite how futile it is. "You know, a lot of people who had abusive childhoods fear having babies because they worry that they will pass on that abuse."
"I see you have been reading about elementary psychology." Azula sighs. "I didn't know you could."
"Could read about elementary psychology?" Ty Lee squints.
"Could read," Azula replies shamelessly. "I harbor no resentment towards you for your classless biology, but I am, like Mai, not a very charitable person, and will never bend to your desires for a child, because I honestly only care about myself."
"But you love me," Ty Lee says sweetly.
"You know why I love you?" Azula asks, sitting down on Ty Lee's lap and stopping just short of kissing her. "I can sleep with you in times like these because you can't trick me into having a child."
Ty Lee kisses Azula on the lips, mostly to shut her up. They will have a baby one day and it will be so cute, but it will probably take until Azula holds her little niece or nephew for her to come around.
Azula lays her down gently, kissing and licking and biting as she goes. Ty Lee does not move, because she is thinking, despite usually trying to avoid doing that too often. She does at last kiss Azula back when her princess stops.
They are only half dressed, so it is easy to undress. Azula leans back down and tongues her nipples each in turn, and Ty Lee gasps when she sucks one hard and cries out when she takes it in her teeth.
Azula sits up, tracing just one finger down Ty Lee's neck, who is bucking her hips now, trying to draw her down, moaning. And she succeeds.
