A/N: The Rite of Spring technically only has one lead: The Chosen One (Azula's role), but there are some scenes with a guy and I'd call that playing opposites; there's a lot of chemistry. So bear with the slight deviation from what a normal rehearsal for the ballet would be. This chapter is also less joke-filled than usual, because it leans more towards the soap opera drama side of this story. I hope it's still enjoyable.
Update: I added three scenes I felt were missing and so I reposted the chapter. There's one with Azula and Zuko, one with June, and one with Ty Lee and Ilah. I edited and cleaned up a few things too. Altogether, I just thought the original version of this chapter wasn't funny enough, and I needed to insert the spark of a plotline that's coming up.


Chapter Twelve: The Photographer's Daughter


At ballet class, Azula faces the consequences of what her brother did.

Eyes are on her. She knows that. News spreads fast when Ty Lee is a witness.

"I have to replace Hahn," says her director. The woman has thought through her plan over the course of two days, since her leading man is indisposed. "Azula, Ty Lee, you both did very well as opposites in Swan Lake. Ty Lee, I'm bumping you up to the second most important role."

Azula turns to Ty Lee. They will dance together in the most sexual ballet ever made. It will not be easy to be face to face in scant nude colored cloth as they dance.

Ty Lee thinks she is going to have a lot of sex dreams this spring.

[X]

Azula goes to her mother's house for the weekend. She cannot believe she has to do this twice a month. If she has a mental breakdown, it is the law's fault for enforcing complicated custody rules.

"Because you're going to be a serial killer when you grow up," Zuko snarls during the painful car ride.

She is trapped in traffic with Ursa and Zuko and wants to kill herself.

"I think together we have all of the symptoms of a serial killer," Azula hypothesizes in response to Zuko's snide comments. "See, I am the cool ones, like arson and superficial charm, and you are the depressing ones like bedwetting and necrophilia."

"Azula," snaps Ursa.

"Well, it's not like anyone alive is going to have sex with him, mother," Azula retorts, smirking.

"Mai would!" Zuko snaps.

"Oh, Mai wouldn't. Even she has some standards."

"Azula," mother chides.

But Azula is undeterred. "Mai is more likely to screw our father than you."

"Azula," mother chides, louder this time.

Zuko suggests with a small, aggravating laugh, "You're in love with Mai. I thought you were in love with Ty Lee, but you're in love with Mai."

"Who says they're not both in love with me?" Azula demands.

"I said..." Zuko stops. He knows she knows what he said, and he will never make any progress with her.

As soon as they get home, she rushes to her bedroom, sits on her bed and picks up her phone. She was going to start her essay on Robespierre for history class, but has more interest in her potential girlfriend.

Her texts from June still are there. She takes a deep breath, tries to be brave, and texts the photographer's daughter asking if they can meet up.

Let's roller skate, Shinohai. ;)

At first, Azula thinks that is some sort of sexual slang that she does not know. Then June texts her the address of a roller rink, thank God.

Azula thinks it will be a weird date location, but she needs to clear her mind and get a girlfriend. Ty Lee is the subject of her thoughts far too often, and maybe Azula should move on with someone equally hot.

She convinces her uncle to give her a ride, putting headphones in to avoid his lectures and wringing her hands while her heart palpitates from apprehension.

[X]

Azula walks through the front door. The smell of this place is awful, so she sprays on a little more of her perfume. Well, her cologne, but no one knows that it is the men's kind. Probably.

June approaches her with a smirk on her lips.

"Are you ready?" she asks.

Azula nods. "I was born ready."

"Can you even skate?" June's lips twitch.

"Of course I can. You will find that there is nothing I cannot do." Azula holds up her own pair—well, one she convinced Iroh to buy her on the ride here—and June nods towards the chairs where Azula can change her shoes.

June kneels down to tie them. Azula would snarl at or kick anyone else who tried to do that, but the sensation of her date's breath on her knees is worth the embarrassment. She wishes she remembered more about them making out in a darkroom.

"I'll win you a stuffed animal, sweetheart." June winks.

Azula is the one who wins prizes for pretty, weak girls, in her daydreams and fantasies about her future relationships. Yet, she has never heard anything sexier than that.

Maybe she can forget her crush on the girl next door.

[X]

June stops her lips an inch away from Azula's.

"This is your first kiss, isn't it?" asks the tattooed girl.

They stand among hipsters. Everywhere hipsters. So many hipsters. All of these hipsters watching Azula's deer in the headlights expression when her date leans over to kiss her goodnight.

"Of course not," vehemently says Azula, which is technically true although this is the first real one that counts.

"You scared me when I first met you," says June, "but now I see you're not all that intimidating."

Azula sneers. "I am..." She stops just short of her threat. No, she is absolutely kissing June. That is happening.

So Azula takes the initiative and makes a landslide miss. She kisses her eye. Her eye. Nowhere cute like her nose or something. Her eye.

Azula Shinohai just wants to die.

June laughs. Azula resists the urge to punch some girl with blue hair and stupid glasses who gawks and snickers.

"I'd like to go on another date with you sometime," says June. "Do you still need a ride home?"

She nods towards her car.

Azula Shinohai just wants to die.

On the plus side, she probably has a girlfriend.

On the negative side, everything else.

Especially telling her father about June...

[X]

When Azula gets home, "Daddy," she nervously says, wringing her hands. "I have to tell you something very private that may shock you."

His golden eyes flash with sudden rage. "If you are pregnant..."

"No," Azula hastily clarifies, waving her hand dismissively. "I am not pregnant. I have started dating someone at mother's house."

"Who?" Ozai narrows his eyes. It is the last thing he ever wanted to hear. She is far too young for a relationship of any kind.

Azula ends up shouting her confession, "Her name is June! She's a girl! I think I like girls!"

Pause. Azula's heart races.

"Was that a secret?" replies Ozai, bewildered, and Azula's jaw drops. "Oh, don't act so surprised. I thought you were already out."

"You thought what?" Azula's eyes widen.

Ozai turns up his palms. "You could not be more obvious of a lesbian if you were wearing more flannel than a Pearl Jam concert while watching football and French kissing Ty Lee."

Azula has no response to that.


Chapter Twelve: Hellevator


"Ty Lee, you have today off of work," says Azula Shinohai in the morning after sleeping on Bunny's floor with her fiancée. "You will stay home with my grandmother. She will want to watch MSNBC all day, and you will watch with her. You will not try to change the channel, even if she is on her iPad. You will absolutely not criticize Rachel Maddow's haircut, so help me God."

"I hate the news, Azula," whispers Ty Lee, sipping her hot chocolate while Azula finishes her second cup of coffee in three fast gulps.

"But you love me," Azula says after catching her breath, "and if you love me, you will do this."

Ty Lee closes her eyes and sighs. She knows she will always do what Azula wants her to, because she loves Azula and she is pretty demanding of other people.

"I do love you, so I'll do this," Ty Lee admits, defeated.

It could be worse. She could be taking the conservative one to work with her.

Ty Lee walks to the living room and sits down in front of the huge flat screen television.

"So," she asks her mother-in-law as Azula and Azulon leave for work, "what are you doing?"

"Oh!" Ilah smiles at Ty Lee, looking up from her iPad. "I'm just posting stories about gun violence on Facebook."

Ty Lee forces herself to grin.

"You're saving the world, right?" she brightly asks.

"Not as much as I did when I chained myself to things, but my last Facebook argument got five likes," says Ilah to a girl who has over five-thousand Instagram followers.

"That's so much!" eagerly lies Ty Lee. "You're like famous! Well, famous in a way you're not already famous!"

Ilah nods and returns to her iPad.

Ty Lee looks up at the ultra-depressing news.

It is going to be a long day.

[X]

Azulon asks his granddaughter, "Have you changed that child's name yet?"

"I intend to begin the process soon," replies Azula.

They sit at Junior's Diner for lunch, interrupting a day in which Azulon criticized and commending the different ways Azula runs his business.

"Good," says Azulon. "I'm curious about your wedding. What's your color scheme?"

That is a question Azula never expected from her grandfather.

"Lavender. I wanted blue, Ty Lee wanted pink; we decided on a middle-ground," explains Azula. "The dresses will be white, of course, and the wedding will be entirely traditional."

"Yes, but do you both have bridesmaid's?" asks Azulon, cocking an eyebrow.

"I'm having a best… woman. Best man, but it's Mai," Azula explains, flashing a smile. She hopes he either laughs or openly accepts it.

Azulon chuckles. Thank goodness. "That's like her, isn't it? She's my favorite spouse in this damned complicated family. Funny and sexy."

Azula somehow manages not to throw up on the classy diner table. Why does every creepy old man want to have sex with her best childhood friend?

"She is very funny and sexy." Azula nods. "And is my best man. Ty Lee will have bridesmaids who will mostly be her sisters. Bunny—Mitsuko—will be flower girl. I will walk down the isle to 'The House of the Rising Sun.'"

Azulon loves that. It is his favorite song, Ilah's favorite song, Iroh's favorite song, Ozai's favorite song and Azula's favorite song. A song about a gambler or a prostitute—depending on the singer—is the one thing the family can wholly agree on. Of course Azula will be married to it.

"Good choice," he says and Azula beams. She loves it when he loves what she does. "Now, I expect you to get married in Las Vegas or Yellowstone. The Brimstone will gladly accept your wedding as a major event, and the National Park is breathtaking, of course, and fitting for cowboys."

Azula desperately wants to point out that Azulon is not a cowboy, but she keeps it to herself.

"We are planning to marry at the Brimstone," earnestly says Azula, gaining a nod of approval from her grandfather.

"I like it," he says.

Their conversation ends when the cheesecake arrives.

[X]

"What happened to you, Ty Lee?" asks Ilah Shinohai, changing the channel to true crime. Ty Lee misses MSNBC the moment she hears the grim narrator and sees the dated pictures of smiling victims. "I had you visiting all the time when you were such a sweet young girl, and then you just vanished."

Ty Lee gives one of her standard, deflecting, partially-comedic responses. "I was in the witness protection program."

"Oh, fine. You don't have to tell me." Ilah smirks. Do they all smirk in their family? "Because I will find out. I'm hiring a few investigators before I let you marry my darling granddaughter."

"You're hiring what now?" Ty Lee's eyes bulge.

"Investigators. They'll make sure you're not bad news," Ilah replies, smiling as if that is normal.

Ty Lee, agape, directs her attention to Dateline.

[X]

Azula spends half of her day holding perilous conversation with her grandfather as she fills out name change paperwork. Azulon pays the fees himself and in one month, Bunny will be officially named Mitsuko Shinohai.

"You adopted that child before getting married?" Azulon asks as Azula sits in an uncomfortable chair with a clipboard on her lap.

Azula's heart pounds; he sounds like he disapproves.

"I wanted to offer Ty Lee's daughter everything that the Shinohai family does. She was in a dreadful situation with her mother and it was the right thing to do. Noblesse oblige and all of that," Azula explains, carefully watching his expression.

He nods. "That was a good thing of you. I'm proud of you for being so selfless."

Azula's panic mostly recedes.

"We can still nickname her Bunny, right, grandfather?" asks Azula, batting her eyelashes.

He nods, smiling warmly at her. "It's cute, but not fitting for the Shinohai family. A nickname does no harm of course."

As they sit in the limousine on the way home, Azula tries to think about how she can break this news to Ty Lee.

She probably will not be happy about Azula changing their daughter's name.

[X]

"You what?" Ty Lee hisses, trying to keep her voice down. They stand outside of their apartment in the lukewarm springtime air. Azulon and Ilah and Bunny are inside, thankfully, so they cannot hear the argument. "Azula, I trust you and I let you run my life but you can't just do that."

Azula shrugs. "You let me adopt her," she whispers.

"Her name is Bunny and I named her Bunny and I like the name Bunny," Ty Lee whispers.

Azula purses her lips and walks away.

She can do as she pleases, whether Ty Lee protests or not.

[X]

Azula attempts to avoid Ty Lee at work but fails. She thinks her fiancée has unsuccessfully arrived, but she sees her running towards the elevator with her huge, hideous pink purse in tow.

"Hold the elevator please!" shouts Ty Lee, reaching out.

Azula Shinohai jams her finger against the 'close' button as many times as she can.

"I'm trying to! It's not working!" Azula loudly lies, but Ty Lee catches up with her and shimmies inside.

They make it inside of the slowest elevator on the planet heading towards the top floor of a skyscraper. Azula seriously regrets wanting to be the Overlord of the Universe from her wicked fortress of a gorgeous office.

"I am not talking about our daughter," says Azula.

"Who you insist is my daughter all the time!" Ty Lee snaps, huffily crossing her arms.

Azula rolls her eyes behind the mask of her dark sunglasses.

"I am the most giving person in the world," says Azula. "Your daughter has anything she desires in the world thanks to technically being a Shinohai. I also have the power to change her name if I so desire."

"How does that not require both parents to sign?" Ty Lee screeches.

"Five-hundred dollars doesn't require both parents to sign," replies Azula.

"You bribed the people?" Ty Lee breathlessly demands, her already rotund eyes wide. "How desperate are you?"

"When it comes to my grandfather, extremely desperate." Azula adjusts her sunglasses. "How are you not eager to please? You always have been until this wedding."

"Well, you just suck at planning weddings and your family is super taxing on my sanity. What's the name of that hospital your dad locked you in because maybe I should stay there until our wedding!" Ty Lee screams. She feels her stomach twist with regret after saying that.

"Unfortunately, I will be in a relationship with your sister when you get home, and so we won't have much of a wedding." Azula does not even smirk about her barbed comment. She still remembers Ty Lee sucking on Zuko's face when she came home.

"Well maybe I'll rescue you like The Graduate!" Ty Lee shrieks. Her voice hurts Azula's ears, but the CEO has no desire to stop her. "And we'll run off together into uncertainty."

"Who said I would marry your sister? I never planned on getting married until we fell in love again," says Azula. "I had a lot of fun sleeping with a different girl every over night."

"Every other night?" Ty Lee asks, cocking a eyebrow. "That's kinda specific."

"I am very busy with my work and can only afford to have one-night stands about four times a week. As I did very happily for eight years until I started dating you again," Azula softly says, pointedly turning away from Ty Lee.

Azula reaches into her purse and removes that horrid blue dragon lighter that has inexplicably lasted for millennia like a real dragon and the moment she pulls out a cigarette and Ty Lee impulsively whacks it out of her hand.

"What the fuck?" Azula barely stops herself from throttling her.

"If you're going to raise my daughter then you should be a good example!" screams Ty Lee, glaring with her nostrils flared.

"I am an amazing example! I'm a thousand times more successful than you have ever been! I prove that—"

"That you're really lucky when your grandfather has a business to give you as a graduation present!" shouts Ty Lee.

The elevator stops and opens.

Azula picks up her lighter and walks out of it.

She stares at Ty Lee.

"I am getting a new secretary. You are done here. You can go home," grimly says the CEO.

Ty Lee studies her expression to see ifs she is serious.

She is.

With her lip trembling, Ty Lee closes the elevator door and goes to watch MSNB home with Ilah Shinohai.


A/N: I'm doing a story taking place in this Universe for Autumn Tyzula Week 2016. If you like the Shinohai family, check it out at the end of the month. Thank you for reading and I hope you're enjoying the show.