A/N: CONTENT WARNING: Spice incoming. Now I've walked through hell for you. What's an adventurer to do? Love and be loved. Read… and review!

I Know

[Fall/Winter 114 AG]

"I know!"

Azula grunts in frustration at the sight before her. Roland leans against the side of her home while Lonou sits on his behind in the dirt beside her. Roland had just got done telling her how she needed to be more mindful about how she treats the floral.

"Have you tried talking?" Lonou asks sincerely.

"Talking?" Azula asks, incredulous. "Talking to what? The plants?"

"Ah yeah, that's good, Lonou!" Roland comments.

"Not you too? Ugh! This is ridiculous."

The cool seasonal air blows through the village. Soft feet crunch their now familiar path through Lanxi, on their way to the three leaders sitting around a garden.

"You might need to consider a different method, Asuna." Lonou tries to reason with her. "What you're trying to grow is finicky and may need a different hand to guide its growth."

"I think a different hand just showed up." Roland quips.

The black haired woman turns her attention and sees the brunette winding her way towards her. She quickly rises as she shouts, "Ty Lin!"

The fire nation royalty envelops her girlfriend into a tight hug, spinning in place. As they part, the visitor bestows a peck on the lips. Her lips curl upward as she sees the genuine joy this brings to the girl with golden eyes. As they gaze into each other's eyes, Ty Lee unconsciously runs her hand through Azula's hair for the first time in months.

"It's so long!" She comments lovingly. "It hasn't been this long since…"

Ty Lee trails off thinking back to a year and longer ago. She remembers why it was so short and why it grew back at such odd lengths. She has a vision of a girl, wounded and broken, showing up at her door in the black of night.

"I know!" Azula replies without missing a beat. "I think I'll cut it myself. I wasn't ready for it at first but I kind of liked it short, if I'm being honest."

Ty Lee smiles at this. Azula had taken a bad memory and in a few words turned it into a beautiful new chapter of her life. She holds the woman tighter and feels warm. Azula grins deviously as she feels the hands tightening around her. The girlfriends staring at each other drags a few more seconds before someone near by clears their throat.

"Well, we'll clear out and give y'all some time. Come see us for dinner tonight, won't you, Ty Lin?" Lonou says.

The brunette releases and looks at the elder man. "Yes, of course! Can't wait to see what Alane has planned for us tonight."

Roland bows while Lonou nods his head. The duo departs, leaving the women alone. This is Ty Lee's fourth visit since Azula moved in almost a year ago. Their friends in Lanxi have learned by now.

"Shall we?" Azula asks.

"Thought you'd never ask." She responds, walking to the front door.

Every time the brunette from the Fire Nation arrives in town, their ritual always starts in the same place.

The door closes behind them and immediately their hands are on each other. Their lips meet in a passionate affair. Through muffled kisses, Azula groans, "I missed you. How was the trip?"

Ty Lee lifts Azula up off her feet, legs wrapped around her, earning a squeal from the shorter woman. The chi blocker begins kissing the neck of her girlfriend. Between some she offers, "Fine. Almost missed my transfer."

The ritual always starts in the same place; Ty Lee carries Azula to bed.

Azula sits in a chair, flipping through some mail in the early afternoon. Her girlfriend lies wrapped in bed sheets, taking in the scents and the sounds of Lanxi and Azula's home. The Kyoshi Warrior feels warm as she snuggles into the bed. She rolls over just in time to watch the woman with black hair ignite a small blue flame on a letter. She watches it kindle a moment and then when it starts to burn, Azula let's it drop into a bin.

From the bed she asks, "You burn everything still?"

Grabbing another one, Azula doesn't look away from burning the next one. "Can't take any risks that anyone ever finds me here."

"Who do you even get letters from? Besides me?"

"Lin and I stay in contact."

"Oh."

This reply gets Azula's attention.

"If you burn his letters, does that mean you burn mine too?"

Azula stares at Ty Lee. They hold eye contact for a moment. They each draw a deep breath.

Azula lies.

"In through the nose…"

Azula struggles to hold it.

"... Out through the mouth."

They release in unison.

Azula hopes it's the last time.

"In through the nose…"

'Agni damn it, Ty Lee!'

"... Out through the mouth."

They release again.

That was definitely the last time, she thinks.

"In through the nose…"

Azula has no one to blame but herself.

While her girlfriend prepares for dinner at Lonou and Alane's, Ty Lee takes a few seconds to snoop around. She peruses over Azula's deskspace. It's small & quaint. There's a quill and a bottle of blank ink. Various blank parchments. One candle to light the dark. There's a document titled 'Avatars (Date Order).' Sitting on top of that is a small, yellow notepad, and an additional quill. The notepad read, 'So Loud,' which was underlined and presumably a title. Under that were a few words scratched out:

Breathless

Machine

Name

Forest

Dark

Ash

Sun

Further down below, in a much larger font, was the question, 'Bird?' Ty Lee wonders what all of this means, although the use of bird was at least familiar and triggers her memory. She wonders.

'Are these all of her nightmares?'

Azula finds herself at a cliff side. The sun is high in the sky and she feels out of breath. She speaks even though she doesn't even know who she is speaking to.

"We have so much ahead of us. Our whole lives."

She spins around and a woman she knows, from a memory forever ago, stands across from her. This is different yet all the same. She speaks but Azula doesn't hear her. It is filled with sound and fury.

Azula grits her teeth and walks past her, leaving the cliffside and heading back down the hill. "Stop it, Ty Lee. You're ruining the moment."

"I see now," the girl replies. Azula turns around and she is faced with Ty Lee, but younger. She is the 14 year old girl she discovered at the circus. She is angry and shouts at her, "You want me to be a mess. You want me to be scared. But I'm like you now: I'm not afraid of anything. This is what you wanted!"

Azula steps towards her, nearly tearing up, a furious rage exploding from places she recognizes all too well. She yells in the face of the teenager, "This is what you wanted!"

Azula is fighting back tears at all costs now. Ty Lee finally understands. She steps towards the Puppetmaster.

Azula clears her throat. She speaks with a voice that is obviously feigning confidence. She tells her, "You love me."

A 27 year old, current day Ty Lee replies immediately, "No."

"I love you." Azula pleads.

A child version of Ty Lee steps towards her. One that did cartwheels in the royal garden. One that sat with her in school. Azula backs away. The child shakes her head and tells her convincingly, "No."

Azula falls to the ground and scurries back as if she was being pursued with a blade. She cries, "I do."

An elder Ty Lee towers over her. She must be in her 60's, maybe her 70's. Calmly she explains, "You don't understand what that is."

The ground crumbles beneath Azula. She falls into a hole in the earth. Shrouded in darkness, she feels herself hit the bottom. She collects herself and just as she stands up she's struck by a number of objects.

She looks up and watches dirt rain down upon her. She screams, "Hey! HEY!"

The dirt continues to be poured down upon her. Her feet and legs become rigid. Her torso begins to be buried. A figure appears above her. A woman. The sight paralyzes her more than the dirt. Azula mumbles at her.

"It… it can't be. You're… you're… you're…"

Standing above her, beyond reach, in the background of the cliff side, is a young adult. A woman at the peak of her power.

"I'm, I'm, I'm," she replies while mocking her voice. "The Dragon Empress."

The younger version of herself turns and walks away. The dirt showers upon Azula until she knows nothing but darkness.

Azula awakens in bed, gasping for air. Lying beside her in the tiny bed, the warm body of her girlfriend stirs slightly but doesn't wake. Quietly, Azula rises and exits the bed. She goes to stand by the window and overthink things in the shadows.

It doesn't take long, just a few minutes alone in bed before her girlfriend finally wakes. She rolls around before opening her eyes. She sits up on her elbows and squints through the night, completely off-target. With a croaking voice she asks into the nothing, "Azula?"

"I'm here." She answers quickly.

Startled to find Azula by the window again, Ty Lee pulls herself into a sitting position. This was nothing new for her. She rubs her sleepy eyes as she asks, "Another nightmare?"

The woman at the window sighs deeply. She stares out the window as she replies, "Yes."

"First time you've gotten out of bed without waking me."

"I doubt it'll be the last."

Brushing some hair out of her face, Ty Lee asks her, "Do you want to tell me about this one?"

"Not particularly."

"I see." Ty Lee replies, but she knows. She sits in silence and patiently waits for Azula to work up the courage. It only takes a minute or so.

"You." She starts finally, but then stops abruptly.

"I?"

Azula blinks and then squints. She takes in a short breath and then huffs it out of her nose. Her eyes glance at the woman in the bed. When she finds her still there, not a figment of her dreams, not some unrealistic, child's story, she feels ashamed. She looks away, and back out the window. She feels a pit form in her stomach as she tries to explain.

"You told me that I don't understand what love is."

"I'd never say that to you, Azula. It was just a-"

"No, you told me that."

"Hm?"

Azula can't look back at her. "On Gou Island. After Koh's. Before I…"

Ty Lee recalls. She sits up straight in the bed.

Azula sighs audibly. "You were right. You are right. I didn't. I still don't. I've never known what love is."

Meekly she adds, "I don't even know if I love myself? How can I ever love anyone else?"

This sparks an idea in the brunette's mind. She asks her sincerely, "Do you love me, Azula?"

Azula chortles. She still can't look at her. She replies, "Don't patronize me. I just told you that I don't even know what it is."

Ty Lee stands up out of bed, but stays by the mattress. "Do you love me, Azula?"

She can't look back at the taller woman. She takes in quick, successive breaths. She utters, "Ty…"

Ty Lee closes the distance between them. Azula averts her eyes in shame. Ty Lee lifts her hand up and cups the side of Azula's cheek. Softly she pulls her head to face her. They lock eyes.

"I love you, Azula. Do you love me?"

Azula pauses. She reflects on a lifetime of memories.

"I do." She gives the slightest nod of the head.

"Good," a grateful smile dawns on Ty Lee's lips. "Now listen carefully. I'm only going to say this once."

Azula attunes her whole body to hang on her every word.

Ty Lee stares deep into her golden eyes as she tells her, "If you have enough love in your heart to love me, then you have enough love in your heart to love yourself."

Azula nods in acceptance. She submits to the notion and let's it wash over her. Together they steal a dreaming glance out the window. The lovers stay there a while before finally returning to bed.

"And then!"

"Stop!" Azula laughs, clutching her stomach in bed.

"And then, your greedy ass, ate all of that damn mochi!"

"Oh Agni, Ty, it was so damn good."

"It was all the negative chi. The forbidden fruit tastes sweeter!"

Azula laughs, head bouncing on Ty Lee's chest with each chuckle. This gets a laugh out of the brunette. They lay tangled in the sheets of Azula's bed the morning after Azula's nightmare. The sun hasn't risen above the hills yet, but soft light has begun to break across the horizon.

"So that's how you came up with the Kemurikage? That stupid children's story that had Mai peeing her bed?"

"Did she? Did she pee her bed?" Azula asks, incredulous but hopeful.

"Oh, I'm not sure. I just meant-"

"Oh, damn, I was excited for a second." Azula giggles like a schoolgirl. "But yeah. It was perfect, Ty. Angry spirits? Women haunting vile warlord men? Disguised by smoke and shadows? I think I was one in a past life."

Ty Lee plays with Azula's right hand, a finger idly tracing the scar in her palm. She mumbles, "Agni. Can you imagine if we had done this at that sleepover?"

Confusion rising, Azula continues staring off into the room but asks, "Done what?"

"What if we had just, I don't know, been us back then. Imagine how much happier and different our lives would be?"

"You mean, like this?"

"Yeah! Like," Ty Lee starts as her imagination winds up. "What if that night instead of stealing mochi, we had admitted we all had crushes on people? And we would tease Mai, because hers was obviously on Zuko."

Tentatively Azula replies, "Obviously."

"But she would've gotten so mad. And she would've teased us about our crushes."

"You've really thought about this, huh?"

"And then either you, or more likely me, would've admitted we had a crush on someone."

Azula falls silent.

"And then we would've tried to pull it out of the other one. And I would've resisted and been embarrassed and shy."

Azula sees it clearly.

"But then I would've gotten a burst of courage, and I would've admitted that it was you."

Azula's cheeks burn and she nudges her head in deeper.

"And maybe, instead of stealing mochi, maybe we would've kissed? And just, can you imagine it? What hope!"

Caught off guard, Azula asks, "Hope?"

"It's just an image filled with hope!"

Azula doesn't respond.

"And just, if that had happened? Like then, or any other day, just can you imagine you and me? Mai and Zuko? Running around, going on double dates."

"This is silly, Ty."

"Is it?" She asks, stealing a glance down at the woman resting on her chest. "I think it's magical. Try to imagine it yourself."

"Imagine what? If I had been normal like you?"

"Ha! You said it yourself. I was never normal."

Light creeps in through the window. The very touch of the sun reaching out to them. Ty Lee can't stop herself.

"But what if Ozai wasn't your dad? What if you and Zuko weren't pitted against each other from birth? Or if you and I could've just been with each other as kids?"

'As kids?' Azula wonders. She can't imagine it anymore. Ty Lee is saying too many words.

"You and Zuko as siblings, not rivals. Mai as our best friend. Us in love!"

Azula feels like the wind has been knocked out of her. She tries to joke, "That's illegal in the fire nation still, you know?"

"Okay? And? You say that like it would've stopped you. Like it ever stopped you."

Azula smirks. She hopes that the moment has passed. She feels paralyzed on top of Ty Lee. Paralyzed by her words and the ideas she's putting in her head. The former circus star doesn't stop planting seeds in the gardener's mind.

"Or what if we had fallen in love, really fallen in love, like, while we were searching for Zuko and Aang? Traveling the world together. Stargazing. Arguments around the campfire. Imagine being in love that whole time?"

Azula gulps. Joking it away hasn't worked yet. But if she keeps trying, maybe it'll work next time.

"Oh no," she starts. "I was way too fucked up in my own head for that, Ty. I was ashamed as shit. I was trying to hide it as it is. I probably would've acted like I was practicing for marriage, something stupid like that."

Ty Lee laughs and Azula feels free. She hopes that the moment has passed.

"Maybe," Ty Lee sighs. "Probably."

'Freedom.'

"But what if you never even had that shame?"

Azula grows more solemn.

"What if we could've just loved each other?"

She hides her face further away from her lover. She rebuttals. "That's a different kind of world."

Azula remembers the light leaving Ozai's eyes.

"That world didn't exist for us."

She flashes through a childhood of discipline and perfection.

"It certainly didn't for me."

Ursa walking out.

"But that's my point!" Ty Lee says excitedly.

Azula's teeth feel sharp as knives to touch with her tongue.

"What if it had?" The taller woman says, mid daydream.

Azula feels dizzy, even as she has been lying in bed all night. Since she left the windowsill.

"What if you had been loved?"

She feels a shortness of breath. She tries to breathe in through her mouth and out through her nose. It doesn't work. Nothing works.

"What if they had never made you feel like a monster?"

Azula feels the tidal wave rise high above her head. She feels the tears welling up. She can't breathe. She has to move. She can not stay.

"What if Ozai hadn't-"

Abruptly Azula sits up, choking back a sob. Ty Lee is startled. She asks, "Azul-"

Azula dry heaves and then shudders. She sobs loudly.

"Azula!"

Ty Lee sits up in bed and pulls the smaller woman into her arms. The body shakes against hers as tears pour out. Her emotions overflow and she can not stop herself anymore. "It's not-its not fair, Ty."

"What's not? Azula, what's wrong?" Ty Lee says, holding her tighter. She keeps fixing her hands to pull the girl in, hoping that she'll be able to find the string she pulled to unravel her and maybe put it back together. She whispers to her, "What's going on?"

"I didn't want to be like that. I never wanted-"

"Azula, no, baby, oh no!" Ty Lee runs a hand through her long, black hair. She kisses her forehead and pulls her in more.

"I don't deserve it. I don't deserve this. Or you, or-"

"Azula, yes, no, you, Azula, wait!" Ty Lee begs her. Her hands move without meaning, anything to stay active and keep the princess pinned to her body.

"I can imagine it," Azula sobs.

"C'mere, baby!" Ty Lee says, cradling Azula in her arms. Azula somehow cries harder than before.

"Hope, Ty. Hope."

"I know. I know. I know. You deserved so much better. We all did."

"I hated him, Ty," she cries. Vision blurred, she feels the taller woman rock her subtly. "I hated him but I loved him. I wanted him to love him."

"I know."

"I wanted to hate him but I wanted him to love me so bad."

"I know, Azula, I know. I know, baby."

"I wanted what Zuko had with Mom. I wanted my Mom."

"I know. I know."

Ty Lee sighs. She holds Azula against her body as the sun finally rises above. Azula stops babbling and just cries hoarsely into her strong arms. Every now and then renewing in vigor. Ty Lee keeps whispering to her.

"I know."

A/N: This Chapter's OST is "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie.

Love always. Tyzula forever.

Notorious