AN: So, I was going to stop at 42 chapters, but I have so many ideas for plot arcs and there's so much more character development I want to work on that I now am calling this an infinite story as of now. I will keep writing it until I get to a place where I feel like the story really has reached a good, solid, satisfying conclusion. Or just write forever like the amazing Tyzula story I recommend wholeheartedly Chasing the Endless Sunrise by the savage barbie. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and the spark for the next arc which has some serious spy movie vibes and Tyzula hurt/comfort porn.

Don't Stop Me Now

28. Bubbly

In the middle of the night, Ty Lee wakes alone. She touches the half of the bed where Azula usually sleeps and finds it cold and empty. Shivering, Ty Lee rises and starts her search for her wife. She finds Azula surprisingly quickly, sitting in her usual spot halfway between the palace and the gardens.

"I am in no mood for your… idiotic optimism. I don't have the patience for your stupid platitudes." Azula rubs at her eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to conceal the tears that she let slip before Ty Lee arrived.

Softly, Ty Lee touches Azula's cheek. "I have a bubbly personality and a pink aura. I'm not stupid. I'm happy. Not stupid. Happy."

Azula deadpans, "You thought the blue on the map was land."

"But… I'm not stupid."

"Just woefully ditzy."

"Can I help you?" asks Ty Lee.

Azula says, although she is not sure if she means it or not, "There is nothing I wouldn't do to not feel this way anymore."

Ty Lee softly kisses her on the lips.

"I'm gonna do everything and anything I can. I promise."

Azula turns away and tries to go to sleep.

She simply cannot believe that Ty Lee can do anything to fix this unfixable state of mind.

29. Mommy

The next morning, Azula sits on the floor playing with Izumi when Ty Lee walks in, shuffling her feet instead of gracefully prancing. Azula narrows her eyes as she hears that odd entrance. Izumi begins to wail in response.

"Izumi," coos Ty Lee, crossing the room and gently taking the princess into her arms. "It's okay, Izumi. It's all okay."

Azula watches the two of them, chewing on her lip as she ponders. Izumi quiets down and snuggles into Ty Lee's arms.

She wants to give up or run away.

But the two of them make that impossible.

Azula could not leave them even if she wanted to.

30. Bad Girls

"I have no idea why we are even wasting our time by visiting your absurdly oversized family," icily gripes Azula as they stride through the light rain.

"We don't have to, princess. They just keep bothering me about meeting Izumi, is all."

Azula huffs and admits, "We already are here. Might as well suffer through it."'

At that precise moment, the sky opens up and releases a torrent of heavy, heavy rain. Azula stomps her foot as it almost instantly soaks her and her wife. Wonderful. Azula hates water, especially rain.

Together, clutching each other and Izumi, they run the rest of the way to the small mansion. Ty Lee pounds vigorously on the door as Azula tries to soothe her squalling baby girl.

Finally, Ty Lee's mother opens the door and beholds the messy sight before her. Ty Lee quickly hugs her and then steps back to let the aging woman analyze the situation.

"I can watch the baby while you two change into some dry clothes," offers Ty Lee's mother, staring right at Azula.

"Do that," orders the princess, cautiously handing over Izumi and following Ty Lee up two flights of stairs.

A flood of memories washes over Azula as she steps into Ty Lee's childhood bedroom. She has not been here since what happened at the Boiling Rock all of those years ago. And not one thing has changed. At least, in the room. Everything else in the world has moved on except those stuffed animals and ugly pink candles.

They do not speak or even acknowledge each other as they both shimmy into comfortable silken sets of Ty Lee's old clothes. All is silent until Azula finishes dressing herself and Ty Lee bursts out laughing.

Azula lowers her hands from wringing out her hair, scowls, crosses her arms and shoots the wildly giggling Ty Lee a bitter look. "Laugh it up. They're your clothes."

"I-I know. And you look better than me in them!"

"No one could look good in this shade of pink." Azula ties her wet hair back into its topknot as she glowers at the mirror.

"You're beautiful in everything, princess," Ty Lee gushes, ignoring the insult.
"Oh?"

"You even look terrifying in that. And terrifying really does it for me." Ty Lee giggles and shamelessly winks.

Azula shakes her head and suppresses a smile. "That cannot possibly be healthy for you."

Ty Lee walks towards her slowly, hips swaying, Azula trying not to stare lustfully at those intentionally sexual motions.

"I had so many good guys and girls. Nice ones. I could've stayed with them. I had so many chances for safety and happiness. Why couldn't the good guys and girls be more like you?" whispers Ty Lee, eyes glistening in the low light.

Azula roughly kisses her and whispers teasingly in her ear, "Because then they would be bad."

Ty Lee smiles and blushes as they stumble to the bed.

31. Jokes

This year, the annual Peace Conference is being held in Caldera, and Zuko's darling guests crowd the palace.

Azula sighs and pours herself another glass of alcohol. And then she turns around to see one of Zuko's least likeable friends taking a seat. In Azula's personal space.

She hesitates, contemplating whether to kick the bitch out or be a good politician, help herself climb back up to a position of at least some power. It is, of course, what she was born to do.

The politician within wins.

"Do you drink?" inquires Azula, grabbing another glass and filling it without waiting for an answer.

Toph snorts. "Only to excess."

Azula smirks. "Only to excess? Clever."

"I thought so." Toph shrugs loosely. "So, got any decent jokes? I'm bored out of my effing mind."

"You first," orders Azula, sitting down and sleekly crossing her legs.

"Whatever." Toph downs her drink and then gets up to refill it. She carries the bottle of alcohol back with her to her seat. Azula smirks. "How do you find a blind man in a all nude brothel?"

Azula squints and shrugs. "I don't know."

Toph smirks as she tells the punchline. "It's not hard."

Azula pauses, gets the joke, and cackles.

"I have one," says Azula, refilling her drink as she speaks. "What's the first order an Earth Kingdom military commander gives at the start of combat?"

Toph scowls, face screwed up in thought. "Uh… I give up."

Azula smirks, quite victorious. "Exactly."

Toph cackles at the joke and kicks up her bare feet on the coffee table.

"You are in desperate need of a pedicure," comments Azula, sneering at the gruesome sight.

"Been there, done that, it sucked."

Azula takes another sip of her drink.

32. Plea

Azula wakes up the next day hung over. That almost never happens. Damn that blind bitch and all of Zuko's other useless diverse friends. They drank and told jokes for hours and Azula hates herself for it.

As Azula starts to sit up but Ty Lee softly grabs her sweaty wrist.

"Can we talk for a moment?" begs Ty Lee.

"Fine," groans Azula, breaking free of her wife to massage her temples.

"I know you might not believe me, but I was lost for a long time. Lost and broken. I even wrote down a suicide plan and kept it under my pillow." Ty Lee chokes on traitorous tears as she admits that secret. "But then I went to see this empath psychic in Ba Sing Se. She changed everything. And she lives in Caldera now."

"Why should I care?"

"Come see her with me."

"Ty Lee…"

"Please, princess." Ty Lee bats her eyelashes. "I'd do anything."

"Anything?"

"I'd bring you golden apples and grapes made of rubies if you wanted. I'd bring you firelilies in winter. I'd bring you water from the Spirit Oasis or crystals from Ba Sing Se. I'd bring you gems I dug up with my bare hands and stones I dragged for miles. Anything."

Azula takes a sharp breath.

"A glass of water would do," she says. "Perhaps with a shot of sake on the side."

"Right away, Princess." Ty Lee bows and slinks out the door.

Azula frowns.

She would in fact do anything to stop feeling this way.

Even indulging Ty Lee's ridiculous idea about some kind of empath psychic.

33. Forgiveness

Azula expected something different when Ty Lee took her to the empath psychic. She imagined pinks and perfumes, not blue silks in the middle of the Fire Nation, not water fountains everywhere instead of incense. The sound of the water comes off as a soothing babbling brook and Azula does not know what to make of it.

She is still getting her bearings in this strange place as a beautiful Water Tribe woman emerges from the back room and warmly greets Ty Lee.

Azula clears her throat and interrupts the reunion with, "You are a psychic then? A fortune teller."

Honestly, the princess could not keep the scorn out of her voice if she tried.

But the beautiful blue-eyed woman stays calm. "Not quite. I am a Water Tribe shaman."

Azula cocks an eyebrow. "What is a Water Tribe shaman anyway?"

The shaman calmly explains, "A person of great spiritual wisdom looked up to by a tribe."

"Are you from the North or South?"

"My tribe comes from both, but I was born in the North. War took all of us to Ba Sing Se as refugees, through one avenue or another. We formed our own alliance in the slums there. I was elected to become their shaman."

"Is that not wasteful in times like those? Soldiers are far more important than wise women."

The Water Tribe woman ignores the statement.

"My name is Siren."

"Siren? That's… rare."

"The female shamans take up names like those."

"Nicknames?"

"Something like that."

"So, how do you become a shaman, anyway?"

"If I were in my home, it would have been through ice caves. Since myself and my sisters and brothers were removed from our homes, we used the caves that run below all of Ba Sing Se."

Azula breathes in sharply. "I am… familiar with them."

Paying the comment no mind, Siren continues, "They trap you in the cave and give you eight days to escape."

"What does that test?" Azula furrows her brow, almost perplexed by the savages.

"Your resolve."

"How did you survive?"
Siren deeply inhales before speaking. "I was in darkness. Alone. Afraid. I regretted my decision, especially when I started digging the wrong way. But then, as I was giving up, I found crystals. A small light in the dark, but, more than that, I broke one free and it became my chisel. With sweat and pain, I used it to dig myself free." She pauses, hesitates, thinks. Finally, she withdraws a green crystal out of her deep pocket. She presses it into Azula's limp hand. "Take it as a reminder that in the darkest times, you can always find a light."

"I can't take this. It isn't rightfully mine." Azula never thought she would say such words as those, but the idea of accepting an eerie Water Tribe token from the site of her last and probably final victory gives her gooseflesh.

"I'm giving it to you. It's yours now, as a symbol of my forgiveness."

"Oh." Azula cannot manage much more than that.

She stares at the crystal in her palm and wonders what to do next.

For one of the first times in her life, she does not know.

34. Spy

Azula is halfway through untying her hair and readying herself to sleep when she notices the note on her bed. Slowly, she edges over, wondering how someone could have gotten into her private quarters other than Ty Lee and the servants. She unfolds the yellowing parchment and sees a note waiting for her.

I have a plan to get you what you most desire. Meet me at the bridge in the palace gardens at midnight.

No signature. No trace of who sent her this.

She examines the letter for a few more moments, then crumples it in her fist and burns it to ashes.

Licking her lips, she contemplates what to do about this invasion of privacy and presumptuous message. She can defend herself like no one else. Even a well-trained assassin stands no chance against her. And so she decides to attend the midnight meeting, sneaking out of bed as soon as Ty Lee falls asleep, softly and cutely snoring beside her.

She sneaks through the palace, past the intense security that has been heightened due to the many distinguished guests staying here for the peace summit.

When Azula reaches the garden bridge, she finds herself alone, staring up at the stars. Finally, someone approaches. She pivots and sees a man in the uniform of a servant.

"Who are you?"

"With all due respect, princess, that is the wrong question."

Azula snorts and stares at the pathetic man with disdain. "And what is the right question?"

"The right question is what I can do for you."

Azula traces the outline of her lips in deep thought and decides to hear the strange man out.

The dim starlight illuminates his wicked grin and her intrigued smirk.