A/N: Now I've walked through hell for you. What's an adventurer to do? Love and be loved. Read… and review!
Free Bird
[Spring 114 AG]
Azula is perched upon a throne of iron. The room all around her is dark and grey. She takes a deep breath and looks around her. No one is with her. There are no walls, just the throne and the darkness. There is something oddly familiar about it, yet all the same it is distant. A dense fog forms and overwhelms the room. She climbs upon the throne to escape it. The walls close in upon her.
Fear rising, Azula leaps up. She finds a new platform to land upon. The fog rises up after her, forcing her to skip across the platform, looking for a way out. In front of her appear thin, steel bars. The walls are slits and prevent her from escaping. Her anxiety spikes and then the fire lights.
All around her is blue flame. It climbs up and up and reaches for her feet, heating the platform she stands upon. Acting on instinct alone, she launches herself up and effortlessly lands upon a final platform. The air is thinner and filled with smoke. She struggles to breathe. She opens her mouth to scream for help, but the words don't come out. She flails her arms and waves them all about.
Azula has never been free.
Azula will never be free.
The flames consume her.
Azula shoots up from bed, gasping for air. Lying beside her in the tiny bed, the warm body of her guest awakens suddenly as well, turning and reaching for the woman beside her.
"Wh-what happened? What's happening?"
Without a word, Azula rises from the bed and exits. She goes and stands by the window. She puts space between them and tries to calm down.
"Azula, is everything okay?" She says, staring at her from the bed.
Looking out the window, looking into the shadows to avoid eye contact, she mutters, "It was just a nightmare."
From the bed, Azula hears a stifled giggle. She looks with anger at the girl sitting in the darkness. "What's so funny?"
Ty Lee sits up in bed and scooches closer to the edge. With a laugh she says, "You're just so human."
Caught off guard by this, Azula asks, "I am?"
"You are."
"How so?"
Appearing in the soft light breaking through the window, still sitting on the edge of the bed, Ty Lee explains, "We chased you around the world for a decade. You were one step ahead of us the entire time. There were times where I wasn't sure if we'd ever catch you."
"I'm failing to see how this makes me human."
"That's exactly it!" Ty Lee exclaims, clasping her hands together. "You were not some fire lily waiting to be picked. You were elusive, impossible to contain, never to be pinned down. You were just like a dragon."
Azula recalls similar conversations with both Suki and Ty Lee, many moons ago.
"But now? Now I see you in all of your plain, human glory."
Huffing, Azula replies, "I'm so pleased to hear my nightmares paint me in such a light."
Ty Lee stands and approaches. She stands at the window, in the moonlight. She leans against the wall and looks into those golden eyes. She coos at her, "Tell me about it."
Azula rolls her eyes and looks away. Crossing her arms as she says, "No, I think the mystique is better."
"Azula."
They look into each other's eyes.
"Please."
Azula steals a long gaze out the window. She sighs deeply. "I dreamt I was a bird."
She expects a laugh or a comment. None comes.
"I was a caged bird."
"You mentioned this in your letter. So you were trapped?"
"I was. And then the room filled with smoke or fog and it lit on fire. My fire. I couldn't call for help. I couldn't escape. I couldn't fly away."
"That sounds awful."
Her eyes become glassy as she recollects. "I've been having the same nightmare for most of my life. At least since I became… since I was…"
She doesn't have to say it. Ty Lee knows.
The woman with grey eyes says, "You finally reached complete freedom and then started dreaming about not being free."
Azula nods but nothing is said. Ty Lee wonders out loud, "Do you feel free right now? Tonight? Now that I'm here?"
Ty Lee feels the question is like a tidal wave, rising above her. "Or do you still feel trapped?"
A moment passes. Azula looks into her eyes. She doesn't know how to say this next part. She word vomits. "I'm… glad that you're here."
Ty Lee smiles wide in relief. Her smile encourages Azula.
"I'm really glad. I just…," she pauses. She thinks again about her life and her life gone. "I've hurt so many people, Ty Lee."
"You have."
"And I don't know if I deserve to have… to be…"
"I'll tell you right now that you don't deserve it."
"I don't?" A pang of sadness in her voice.
"No. You did a lot of harm. You hurt a lot of people, me included. Even before you were the, erhm, the girl, boss, whatever, you hurt people."
"Well, so long as you acknowledge that I was the boss."
Ignoring the wise crack, Ty Lee continues, "You asked me earlier tonight about what if you'd never helped Lin with his boat. But what if it had been different sooner?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like, what if you had been different from the start? What if you hadn't followed your father?'"
The idea lingers in the air. For Ty Lee it just floats around like a butterfly. Now it is Azula for whom a question rises above like the waves at Ember Island.
Her voice is fraught as she asks, "If I did change, if I tried to be different. Would you still want to be beside me?"
"Depends on how you change and what you change into," Ty Lee replies without hesitation. Azula is disarmed by how quickly she answers. It had taken so much for her to ask, and nothing to answer. The Ty sister continues, "If it's for good, then I would welcome it. I would want to help you, and I think others would want to too."
The former fire princess feels like she can breathe again. She takes the answer in stride. Suddenly, Ty Lee grows more serious. Time seems to come to a halt as she whispers to Azula in the black of night, "But if you hurt people again? If you go back to killing people? I won't be a part of it. I won't support you. And I won't be beside you."
Sullen and serious, Azula looks her in the eyes. She nods and replies, "I understand."
"Good. That's good."
A lull in the conversation leads to wandering eyes. Azula looks down at her hands briefly. She turns her right hand over and sees the scar. A long, thin slice right through her palm. An everlasting reminder of where she's come from, and how she got there.
Looking back up she asks, "But how do I do 'good,' Ty? How do I fix things?"
Ty Lee thinks for a moment. She thinks about the tales of Hei-Ran. Their dishonor and quest to make it right. The answer flows from this place of wisdom, "If you want to make amends, then you need to do the work."
They lock eyes again. The Kyoshi Warrior tells her, "It's not going to be easy. It's not going to come naturally. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be hard work."
Azula stands up straight. She looks up at Ty Lee, who asks her, "Are you ready for that?"
With absolute confidence she tells her, "Hard work doesn't scare me."
"Good. You may never make it up to the people you harmed, but you can try. Even if you can't, you can always pay it forward."
"Pay it forward?"
"Yeah. Balance out the cosmic forces," Ty Lee says, turning away and sitting back on the edge of the bed. She turns and looks back at the golden eyed girl, hands gesturing all about. "Put more good chi out into the world than the harm you've already put in. Smooth over the aura of your life and your life's impact on the Earth and its people."
Azula nods. She looks back out the window, to the gardens all around her home in the neighboring cottages. She softly repeats the words that Ty Lee has said. She speaks them into existence, reinforcing their importance.
"Do the work."
The sun is not quite up above the horizon yet when Ty Lee opens her eyes. She doesn't need to roll in the tiny bed to know that no one is beside her. She hears a soft crunching noise somewhere nearby. She sits up in bed and pauses. The soft crunch is heard again. She rises and follows the sound. She follows it to the cottage entrance. It crunches again. She opens the front door.
On her hands and knees on the ground outside is Azula of the Fire Nation. She stops when the door opens and turns back to look at the woman standing behind her.
She blunts, "You're a light sleeper."
Cocking an eyebrow at her, Ty Lee replies, "Something about a woman breaking into my home, and also waking me in my bed in the middle of the night. Really keeps you from ever feeling really comfortable sleeping."
"And yet," Azula smirks mischievously. "You just spent the night in bed with that same woman!"
Ty Lee rolls her eyes as Azula's smile widens. The brunette jokes, "There's a first time for everything I suppose. It might even be the last time."
"That would be the greatest disappointment of my entire life."
"Would it?" Ty smiles.
"And that's no small feat," Azula sits on her legs looking up at the taller woman. "I've had many disappointments in my life."
Ty Lee can't contain her giggle at this. Her laugh is contagious and gets Azula laughing too. As they calm down, Ty Lee finally asks, "So, would you like anything to drink to start your morning? I was going to make some tea."
"I have a waterskin in there, can you grab that for me?"
"Sure thing."
Footsteps approach the couple.
"Just bring it out when your tea is done, I'm good for now."
Ty Lee eyes the tan man she knows as Lonou walking up to them.
"Okay, Asuna."
Ty Lee retreats into the home. Azula's eyes turn to the leader of Lanxi. She shouts, "Thanks, Ty Lin."
Azula grabs her spade and continues digging in. His hazy green eyes smile down upon her as he approaches. He observes her shoveling and speaks. "Gardening is hard this time of the year. Of course, little easier out here with the weather we get."
"What's your point, Lonou?" Azula asks, without looking up.
"I thought maintaining your own garden was 'too much work?'"
Azula looks up into his eyes. Her gold eyes and his green ones meet. He does a poor job of suppressing a smile on his face. The words flow naturally from Azula, "I'm finally ready to do the work."
He nods in understanding. His smile grows. He offers to her in a serious tone, "Well, in that case, can I help you?"
Bemused and caught off guard, Azula asks him, "You want to help me garden?"
"Well if you're going to do it in my village, you better do it right," he says, looking away as his smile spreads. "Can't have you making an embarrassment of me and the good people of Lanxi."
She smiles up at him. Ty Lee opens the door again, holding a cup of tea with both hands, a water skim wedge between her arm and stomach. Azula grabs the extra spade she has and grips it by the blade. She offers the handle up to him. She makes a joke but she means every word she says.
"I'm going to need all the help I can get."
Lonou grabs the spade. He kneels down and they set off to break ground together. Ty Lee sips her tea and watches on admiringly.
A/N: This Chapter's OST is "Life in Technicolor ii" by Coldplay.
Love always. Tyzula forever.
Notorious