Parting Sorrows

17. Heir

Azula hears of what is to happen to Zuko and is pleased that her prediction was correct. She knew that father would find some way to be rid of him, and Zuko managed to screw up, as he would have to eventually. Azula could not be more pleased.

"Why are you excited?" Ty Lee asks softly, touching Azula's hand and then quickly regretting it.

"Why would I not be?" Azula purrs with an ever-widening smile. "The throne will be mine now."

Ty Lee grimaces, but she lays her head on Azula's stomach and closes her eyes. She likes to feel Azula's heartbeat and the rush of her blood.

It means that she is human.

.

18. Burn

Azula visits Zuko after his nasty Agni Kai. She feels slightly different now than she did before. When she watched him, she did not feel the same pleasure she did when she heard about his shame and failure in the war meeting. She pitied him, and her stomach did flips.

But she tries to conceal that as she walks in to see him.

Spirits, the room has a strong, coppery stench, mixed with the disgusting smell of burn ointments and soaked bandages.

She steps inside hesitantly, shuffling. The fact that she is here likely against her father's will makes her uneasy. But she has to see him at least once; she probably will never see him again.

"Brother," she whispers, stepping in quietly.

She looks at him on the bed, the bandage on his face. He is knocked out. Pain herbs, probably. She tucks her card into his shirt pocket, and even that does not wake him, but at least he will get her parting message in her cold, crisp characters.

And Azula had such cruel and witty things to him.

And Azula did kinda-sorta-maybe-a-bit want to talk to him one last time.

.

19. Loss

Azula did not know how much she would lose after Zuko was gone. Her time was stripped away, her freedom stolen from her.

She is forced to train, she is forced to do so many more lessons. Father lets her finish out the year at school, after she begged and pleaded. But she knows that once the year is done, she will have to focus on being leader of an empire.

"It's what you always, wanted, right?" Ty Lee asks hopefully as they sit in their dingy dungeon hideout.

"Yes. And I could not be happier," Azula purrs before resetting the Pai Sho table to beat Ty Lee yet again.

Ty Lee has a look of concern that refuses to leave her face, and it makes Azula queasy.

.

20. Failure

Months after Zuko's banishment, Ty Lee is failing her study hall. She stares at the report card her father has just shoved in front of her face and tries to look more ashamed than she feels.

The reason Ty Lee is failing her study hall is because Azula is such a distraction. Whispering, passing notes, tugging on her braid, teasing her... and then there comes the fact that Ty Lee has a mega crush on her tormentor slash best friend, which makes the distraction all the worse.

"How do you fail a study hall?" father snarls, looking aghast and confused, his face ruddy.

Ty Lee just shrugs with her palms turned up towards the sky.

He continues, "It's a study hall. All you do is sit quietly."

Ty Lee just waits for him to dictate her punishment, not bothering to go into the complexities of her relationship with Princess Azula. Who they forced her to be friends with in the first place.

"I promise I'll do better, father," Ty Lee does wind up whispering when he starts comparing her to Rei.

She lies awake at night dreaming about her wedding. And the surge of panic she used to get when she thought about it being a royal wedding to Princess Azula no longer strikes her. It is solely a pleasant fantasy.

Not that Azula would ever reciprocate the crush. Ty Lee is not that lucky.

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21. Braid

An eleven year old Ty Lee fidgets at her desk at the Fire Nation Academy for Girls, stretching her fingers and her limbs as discreetly as she can. She had never been able to sit still, and it is always painful to get through study halls, which she theorizes are simply to torture young wealthy children into submission.

She has gotten in trouble at least eleven times this month for talking during class, and she cannot afford another demerit. Her parents rarely take interest in her school life, but even they are angry of late. She does not want to think about what would happen if they find out she copies all of Mai's homework.

Someone yanks on her braid and she whimpers and digs into her desk. The teacher looks up from the papers she is grading in the strict methods of the Fire Nation.

"Ty Lee, were you born with a defect that makes you incapable of being quiet for ten minutes? Detention. After school tomorrow," she says sternly and Ty Lee nearly throws up all over her glossy desk.

She looks over her shoulder and can only see a small, rosy smirk. Azula. Again.

After class, Ty Lee kicks a wall and the thud is less than satisfying. "How am I...? How am going to explain this? I cannot be a coal miner, Mai! I am too pretty to be a coal miner!" She kicks the wall again and Mai cringes.

Mai examines her hands for a moment, not knowing if it is her place to comment on this. Or the frantic notes Azula passes her during every study hall as she stares intently at Ty Lee, whom is always obliviously in front of her. She sighs, wonders why she ever gets involved in anything outside of eating and sleeping, and decides to intervene for the betterment of the lives of her best friends.

"You know when somebody pulls on your braid it means they like you, right?" Mai offers, only realizing how cliché it sounds once she says it aloud. "She just doesn't know how to talk to you... because she's Azula."

"She is, ugh, if she was not the crown princess, I would just... Mai, she is a stupid jerk is what." Ty Lee then clamps both of her hands over her mouth. That was treason. That was definitely treason. But Mai just chuckles instead of reporting her to the authorities.

Mai examines the fuming mess that is Ty Lee and is immensely grateful that their teacher breaks up the congregation in the hallway and demands that they go to their history class. Or the class where Mai sleeps and pretends to pay attention, and her assigned seat is beside Azula... like in every other class for some certainly coincidental reason.

Azula is paying pathetically intent attention to the dull lecture as Mai drafts a note. This will make them both pay tenfold for all of the times they have tried to get her into uncomfortable situations because of her crush on Zuko. Pushing her into a fountain...

Mai slides it onto Azula's desk and the princess opens it, Mai watching her expression carefully.

Get detention.

Azula squints at her, and starts to scrawl a note.

I don't think that's possible. Also, why?

Mai takes an eternity on her next note and Azula starts chewing on her nails.

All Mai returns is a stick figure drawing, one of which with a distinct braid and the other with a crown, kissing. Azula looks at Mai with her lips parted in mild disgust and Mai just cocks an eyebrow.

Azula glares at the desk. There is no way Azula could get detention, even if she burned down the school. Perhaps when grandfather was Fire Lord, or before Zuko was banished, but now she is the sole heir to a nation and most of the teachers are afraid of even looking at her.

Although, Azula realizes with a quick heartbeat of glee, they could not turn her away from detention for the same reasons.

Azula smirks at Mai and Mai goes back to sleeping behind her textbook.