(Theme Sixty-Two) Sniffles

(As Prompted By) HeavenBesideYou13

"No, stay away," Azula snarls, nearly toppling over a chair as the small child reaches for her, grasping with mucus coated hands. "You're infectious. Take three steps back and stand still!"

Azusami wails and Azula sighs, her maternal instincts beating her survival instincts in a vicious internal Agni Kai. She picks up her daughter and carries her to the most comfortable sofa in the palace, tucking her in and hoping she will not become ill as well.

"It's just a cold," Azula purrs, brushing her daughter's sweaty hair out of her small face. Azusami pouts her lips and glares at her mother before trying to burrow into the sofa and go to sleep.

Ty Lee enters the room beaming, clearly unaware that Azusami might as well have the Earth Kingdom plague, in Azula's eyes.

"Kiri Chuanshuo is having her birthday party tonight. It'll be people from school we haven't seen in forever," Ty Lee says excitedly.

"I thought Mai and Zuko were in Republic City on business and we can't leave the palace. Particularly to go to birthdays of a girl who got arrested for... an assassination? Or was it vandalism of a peace memorial?" Azula says, taking her outer robe off and trying to wipe the sweat off of her quivering daughter. Azusami looks at her with glittering koala-otter eyes that she learned from Ty Lee, and Azula struggles to resist helping her.

"Well, Iroh is in town making sure you don't start another genocide, so he can watch Azusami and the Fire Nation, and we can go to a party." Ty Lee claps her hands enthusiastically and Azusami coughs and moans. "I'm a social flutter bat and... she's sick, isn't she?"

Ty Lee pouts and goes to examine Azusami.

Azula stares at her wife. "She looks awful."

"It's not the worst I've seen," Ty Lee says with a small shrug, although she does go to summon a teacup for her daughter.

Princess Azula swallows in frustration... and finds that her throat is sore.

Dear Agni, no...


Hours later, Azula and Azusami are curled on the same sofa, sick and demanding Ty Lee's incessant attention. The acrobat is about to snap both of their necks in her frustration.

"Ty Lee," whines Azula, reaching out with her clammy hands to grab the skirt of her wife. "Ty Lee take care of me. Take care of us. Don't you love your family?"

Ty Lee looks at the scene, Azula wrapped in a blanket, somehow managing to make a cold look like the verge of death, and Azusami tightly nestled in her arms, sleeping with her mouth wide open. She sighs, groans, and decides to bear it.

"What is it you need? Azula, I have to go to Kiri Chuanshuo's birthday party in like─"

"You are abandoning me? To my death? For a party?" Azula shrieks, her eyes suddenly wide and her face now more fiercely red than sallow. Azusami wakes up, squints, and sneezes and whimpers. "Look at what you've done to our child."

Ty Lee rolls her eyes. "Okay, I won't go to the party..."

"You're lying," Azula says, cocking an eyebrow and brushing Azusami's sweat soaked hair out of her eyes. "You are not a social flutter-bat, you are a social moth-wasp and you've destroyed your family forever..."

She lies back and closes her eyes for dramatic effect. Her crown, which was barely holding on, clashes to the floor and she does not even flinch. Ty Lee purses her lips and Azusami hands her an empty teacup, sticky with honey.

"And quickly," Azusami says before glancing at Azula and imitating her to near perfection.

Ty Lee looks at Azula and Azusami, drenched in the sweat of the common cold and playing dead, slowly shakes her head, and goes to refill Azusami's teacup.

When Ty Lee reaches the kitchen, grumbling to herself in frustration, she bumps into another human. Startled, she whips around and finds herself face to face with Iroh.

"Oh, thank Agni you're here!" Ty Lee screams and he stares in shock as she hugs him tightly. "I'm so alone and in so much pain..."

"What is wrong?" Iroh asks, patting her back awkwardly.

"Azula is sick and, she's, it's just a cold!" Ty Lee tugs at her braid so forcefully that a few strands of hair rip out and stick to her fingers.

Iroh takes a deep breath and sighs. "Zuko is just as bad. Perhaps worse."

"No, it is not worse. Nothing is worse than that. Being trapped beneath the ice of the South Pole and slowly drowning would sap away less of my aura's life force!" Ty Lee shrieks before bursting into hysterical sobbing.

"One day, I figured out how to solve my problem with dealing with Zuko's illness and his dramatic behavior. Most of the ship had come down with a nasty cold from our last dock in the Northern Earth Kingdom. Zuko fell ill and demanded that I care for him," Iroh says, gently rubbing her back. "I quickly grew tired of it, but I soon had a very selfish yet effective fix."

"You burned it all to the ground?" Ty Lee whispers hopefully.

"I infected myself," Iroh says, ignoring Ty Lee's comment and hoping it was a joke. "And then other people had to care for both of us."

Ty Lee looks at him. "You are a tactical genius," she gushes and Iroh blushes gently.

He reaches to take Azusami's teacup and Ty Lee blocks him with a quick motion of your hand.

"Before you refill that..." she breathes, and squeezing her eyes shut, licks up the last of the honey in the bottom of the cup. "That better work."


"Azula, I'm sick!" Ty Lee cries, sobbing and retching melodramatically. There is a slight sparkle in her eyes as Azula glares daggers.

"I know you're sick. You've informed me every hour all day," Azula mutters, trying to keep her hands from smoking.

The princess mutters something to herself about ruing the day she married a histrionic whore, but Ty Lee ignores her and continues to cry. She waves a teacup in front of Azula.

"And pull my blankets back over my body. They fell on the floor," Ty Lee cries, wiping her sweat on her arm and staring at Azula with glittering, wide eyes.

Azula sighs, rubs her temples, picks up the blankets and tucks them around her wife, and then takes the tea to the kitchen.

"Uncle, fill this," Azula snaps, taking great pleasure in ordering someone around instead of being ordered around. "I just want to smother her. What do I do?"

"Zuko had the same problem," Iroh says gently, looking Azula up and down. He has never seen her so worn down and broken, even during her descent after Sozin's Comet.

"What did you do?" Azula whispers, cocking an eyebrow. "Burn it all down?"

"I slipped a little something into his tea..." Iroh admits with a twinkle in his muted gold eyes.

Iroh looks at Azula and takes great pity on her. He did not imagine Ty Lee would go the extra mile with the advice he gave her, and so he, in generosity to his niece, adds a little something extra to the teacup.

It worked well on Zuko...

And Ty Lee is fast asleep within the hour, passed out from the dose of drugs. Azula sits down beside her, tying her raven hair up yet again in a ribbon and daring it to fall out again. Ty Lee looks so peaceful when she is sleeping and not ordering Azula to serve her.

A small, content smile on Azula's rosy lips as Ty Lee continues to lie there silently.

Iroh smiles slightly wider.


A/N: So, I got some amazing, amazing ideas in the reviews for the last drabble, involved Azula and Ty Lee in Ba Sing Se, Kyoto and just some thoughts from people I loved. I decided to outline them and I wound up not stopping writing for a week, making a new ficlet (12 chapters long).

It's called Six Months in Ba Sing Se, and my main goals with it were: Azula learning the influence of her actions on others, Kyoto, focusing on her relationships with Azulon and Lu Ten instead of Ozai and Zuko, and kind of a lighter feel-good sort of romance.

Another thing to address: a lot of people asked if Kyoto will be recurring. So, I've already established Azusami as Ty Lee and Azula's daughter for this series, so for continuity's sake, she'll be their child for the family-centered ones, but I think I will add a few featuring Kyoto.