#27: Skinny Love
Prompted By: American Zombie
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Azula never really had a childhood; Ty Lee's never ended. They take their daughter to the school where they once studied. Azula tries to avoid the stares at her for being the princess who got locked up in an asylum. The princess who lost the war and probably ruined most political careers of these kid's grandparents.
"Why don't you take her in? I'm just going to stand here," Azula says, pursing her lips. The room includes people she knows.
"You can't hide in the palace forever," Ty Lee sighs in her Kyoshi Warrior days, not honest woman days.
"I accept that challenge," Azula replies haughtily.
And in the morning Ty Lee will be with her.
"Are you sure?" Ty Lee asks, holding the hand of their seven year old daughter.
She looks exactly like Azula; it's uncanny. Well, Azula at that age, so adorable and not sexy. Big gold eyes that get her whatever she wants, except from Azula, who sees right through it.
"Oh, please, I'm Princess Azula, I invented that ruse."
Azusami frowns bitterly, stomping her foot.
The school smells exactly how it used to; incense and dread. Ty Lee seems absolutely gleeful at the prospect of subjecting her daughter to education. But Azula looks around and sees crying parents and those with jaws jutting out as if to secure authority. It blends together to her as she wonders where she would be without this place.
Not that she ever liked it. But it was an escape in her pathetic excuse for her childhood.
The walls still have that disgusting red paint. She assumes the bathrooms are still a sickening pastel pink with golden knobs. And now the cycle continues; it feels strange to Azula. There was a long point in her life where she thought she was going to die surrounded by doctors and white walls.
And now she is a person.
When their daughter is left at the Academy for Girls, Ty Lee grabs Azula's hand and dodges out of a meeting for parents.
She has to cut the ropes and let her daughter fall. It makes Azula's stomach twist.
"Maybe she'll meet a little Mai and a little you," Azula says with a small smirk.
"I think Azusami has my social skills, not yours," Ty Lee remarks, cocking an eyebrow. Although her daughter is not related to her by blood, she did most of the child raising.
"Well, now I'm concerned about her getting knocked up," Azula sighs and Ty Lee snickers, rolling her eyes.
"Boys are going to be extremely afraid of her. Girls too, probably."
"Probably," Azula sighs as they wander into the pavilion in front of the school. "I hear school isn't just meant to indoctrinate children anymore. Something Zuko did right, finally."
When they are at home, Azula looks bored by political papers. Ty Lee comes up beside her, kissing her neck. Azula shivers from it and then returns to focusing. Futile, Ty Lee decides.
"Are you worried about her?" Ty Lee asks, giggling and sitting down on an old antique chair.
"No, of course not. My daughter is incredibly capable," Azula says, bristling. Ty Lee smirks to herself.
"You are." Ty Lee giggles again. "She will be fine. I think she's going to have a happy childhood."
"I didn't even have one."
"Then give one to her."
Azula purses her lips. She agrees but does not want to seem weak.
Ty Lee kisses her again and they fall into each other on top of an expensive wooden desk.
