A/N: This one's dedicated to my grandmother, and me trying to explain Tyzula Fanfiction to her last night.
Also, in my personal opinion, this is the best thing I've ever written.
(Theme Seventy-Seven) Ain't No Wedding Like a Tyzula Wedding Because a Tyzula Wedding is Mandatory
(As Prompted By) My Grandmother
Azula frowns at the fact that she is lugging her own suitcases into her childhood home. Honestly, the must have some better kind of help around here. How can father expect to have a proper family reunion without any servants?
The gravel of the exquisite path leading up to the front doors crunches under her scarlet heels, and she can just feel her expensive luggage being scraped to bits.
Her bag gets tangled in vines and she lashes out her palm, burning them to a crisp and then putting out her slightly smoldering designer bag. She clenches her jaw and tries to hold it in.
"It really sucks that we decided to buy all new luggage for this," Ty Lee chimes behind her, swinging her own bag over her shoulder with relative ease.
"I wanted to look like we actually have it together," Azula replies quietly as they walk inside and Ty Lee stops to marvel at a place she used to come to all the time after school. "My father rewrites his will after every biannual family gathering. We must look our absolute best."
They walk up the stairs and find Azula's old room.
"I thought your family had rules about unmarried couples not sharing a room," Ty Lee says, cocking an eyebrow.
"We are in here to practice your lines and make sure we both are together on the web of lies I intend to weave tonight." A loud clash rings out downstairs, the snap of a man and exasperated sigh of a young woman accompanying it. "My father is obviously occupied right now with ZuZu. I wonder if this year father will push Zuko into punching through the wall again. For the sixth time."
Azula drops the luggage, kicks shut the door with her heel and catches her breath.
"Alright, let me hear you again," Azula declares as she examines the room around her.
"I only have one line, Azula," Ty Lee says sharply, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Yes, but you still have yet to master it," Azula replies and Ty Lee weighs her odds.
Ty Lee rolls her eyes, and gazes intently at the portrait on Azula's wall instead of locking eyes with her girlfriend. "I will do this one more time: Yes. I agree with Azula, and whatever she said."
"That was intentionally stilted." Azula scoffs.
"How about I just don't say anything?" Ty Lee suggests, rolling her eyes yet again. This is all Azula has gone on about since they arrived at the Republic City Airport.
"No, no, they know you too well. Act clueless." Azula crosses her arms and sits down on her old bed. It creaks.
"Fine. I really don't understand the point of this. Your family is horrible and you hate them," Ty Lee says with her palms turned up. "And obviously you don't agree with their crazy views if we've had so much premarital sex and you decided to move to another country and start a business empire."
"I know. I want them to all see how much better than them I have become. Or already was, honestly..." Azula touches her lip with one smooth, fake nail and listens carefully for the quiet argument still going on downstairs.
"Right." Ty Lee just squints. "Because your father has pushed you to absurd limits as his child prodigy, and now you feel like you need to be the best at everything to make him love you. And also, you're the only person in the entire family who has never been written out of a will before."
"Yes. That's why we have planned ahead. So help me, if I am not sole benefactor of everything I would not be surprised if by noon this whole place was burned to the ground." Azula glances around at the manorial Fire Nation home and thinks that it might look better in ashes.
Ty Lee grimaces and asks, "Not with us in it, right?"
"Evidently not with us in it." Azula does not even know what to do half of the time. She is trusting her entire inheritance in the hands of a woman who reads auras and performs weird massages for a living.
"My parents made a will where I'm the one who's supposed to divide everything between people." Ty Lee chuckles at the thought.
Aghast, Azula can only inquire, "Why?"
"I'm the most level headed and successful." Ty Lee's chuckling turns into a snort of laughter.
"That's sad," Azula admits with a skeptical twist of her rosy lip.
Ty Lee pouts at her. "That's mean. You're mean."
Azula clears her throat, rummages around for her carry-on bag and withdraws her binder of notes for the family gathering. Ty Lee closes her eyes; it is study guide day again.
"Okay, let us go over the most important facts," Azula orders, as if Ty Lee is one of her workers instead of her girlfriend.
"Well, they're not really facts," Ty Lee snaps back, not having the patience for this.
"Lying by omission does not count as real lying. Nor does bending the truth. Truthbending requires even more poise and control than bending lightning," Azula purrs as she flips through the smooth, colorful pages.
"You gave me my color coded notes on the plane," Ty Lee says with an exasperated sigh.
"Did you read them?" Azula asks sharply.
"Mmmm. I skimmed." Ty Lee shrugs as if this is not the most important matter of Azula's life.
As if Azula does not have a ring stuffed into the pocket of her red cardigan. As if this is just a drill of some sort.
"Alright, my family has absolutely no idea that we are a thing," Azula admits openly, although that will certainly change by tonight.
Ty Lee snickers and Azula glares at her. "I'm pretty sure anybody more aware than a rock has figured it out by now. It's not like it wasn't ever obvious."
"Yes, but no one has clarified it yet and therefore it is not real," Azula insists.
"Mmmm. That's... alright. Whatever happened to Zuko's high school girlfriend? The one who he kept yelling about not being his girlfriend but he totally was so into her." Ty Lee squints. "The Water Tribe one..."
"I don't know. Do I look like I've spoken to my brother?" Azula shrugs and wishes she had numbered the pages more clearly.
"Nope. Not since he bailed you out of ─"
"My parents are also unaware of that, which is why I had to ask my stupid brother to help me instead of my powerful father," Azula snaps, her eyes flashing and flickering with gilded panic.
"Yeah, I don't think they would consider you fit at all for being sole benefactor after the whole Fire Nation Psycho reenactment." Ty Lee is laughing again, now to the point of wheezing. Azula is again repulsed by her frivolous conduct.
"It was not... No. I didn't kill anyone." Azula closes the binder and rubs her temples.
"I don't think he did either. Wasn't it all a dream or something?" Ty Lee seems lost in thought now.
"Some kind of sick perverse fantasy. I am not sure, there was a sequel, wasn't there?"
"Earth Kingdom Psycho. I thought it was better."
"Right, whatever." Azula waves her hand dismissively. "Speaking of horror movies, we have absolutely never had sex. We are both total virgins."
"I got that part. It was in all caps at the top. Blue, though. Why didn't you use red?" Ty Lee remarks, thinking that most people have assumed that their frigid boss probably does not get laid remotely often. Which is not true.
"Because blue is actually the brightest and most noticeable color to the human ─ Ugh. Save tedious interruptions for the dinner." Azula bites her lower lip.
Ty Lee now looks quite severe, which is strange on her Bambi eyes and sweet face. "You're being mean again. If you're mean to me, I'm just going to leave."
"This is not mean. This is normal. Right, we are planning on...?"
"A wedding and two kids." Ty Lee groans and pointedly examines her fingernails.
"Yes. What kind of kids?" Azula leans forward expectantly, her sweater falling loose and exposing lily-white skin.
"... the human kind? I don't know, Azula!" Ty Lee slumps in Azula's desk chair and examines the little dragon figurines amongst firebending medals, and... every kind of medal and trophy.
Oh, and some gel pens that are in perfectly intact order and still have all of the caps after a decade. Ty Lee couldn't keep that up in a single school year.
"We have to have a reasonable plan for this future." Azula says it as if it is their real future and Ty Lee starts toying with the pink gel pen.
"It's really sad that we have no actual plans for our future, but you wrote a novel about a fake future to make your father give you all his money once he dies."
"We can talk about our real future after we openly state the serious nature of our relationship. I think that it is only appropriate that we opt for a very traditional marriage overseen by Fire Sages and then have two of what kind of kids?"
"Human ones!" Ty Lee shrieks and they both fall silent for a moment in case someone heard them. There is no response after several tense heartbeats, and so they move on.
"No. We either have to have some kind of jerk donor who we pretend doesn't exist, or, alternatively someone like my brother or whatever. That's for the first child, of course," Azula states coolly.
"The planned one."
"They are both planned. Do you not see the Agni Temple decals and Fire Nation flag in this room? No, I'm not going to tell my parents that I'm intending on getting knocked up with some unplanned child!"
Ty Lee is unfazed by the snapped orders and winds up over thinking a single statement."Wait. Wait, you just said that your brother was an optional donor, but you're the mother."
Azula is disgusted."Are you serious? That would be if you had the child. Why did you even ask me that?"
"I'm clarifying. I don't know anything about your family at all. Maybe that's normal for you guys. I mean, sometimes families love each other a little too much..."
Azula ignores that statement and says, "The second one is hypothetical."
"They're both hypothetical. You're the one who said we were never having children." Ty Lee pouts again and Azula covers her eyes with her manicured hands.
"In this fake scenario, the first one is all planned out for after we marry, but we think we will have a second as well, at some point. Cue quaint laughter or whatever."
"Boys or girls?"
"Girls. You didn't skim did you? You didn't even look," Azula snaps ferociously, beginning to panic at what could come to pass tonight.
"Why girls?" Ty Lee is confused by the notion that Azula insists on girl children.
"Because I said so, that's why. Can you imagine us with a son? That would be ridiculous. No one has ever imagined us with anything but a little girl," Azula says coldly and Ty Lee does agree. It would be super absurd for them to ever have a son.
Ty Lee rubs her chin. "So, this wedding thing? Are we engaged?"
"No. No, we are very in love and saving ourselves for marriage to each other," Azula groans, now lying on her bed and staring hopelessly at the ceiling.
Ty Lee sniggers again. "Right. We never had sex in your house as teenagers before."
"In this fake scenario, yes!" Azula shrieks.
"Calm down. So, this is completely wholesome lesbian loving. I get it." Ty Lee smiles faintly.
Azula does not pick up remotely on how much of a joke Ty Lee finds this to be. Or if she does, she ignores it. "Precisely. On to our careers and how they are better than everyone else's."
"Why can't we be honest about this one? It's not like we don't have awesome jobs or anything," Ty Lee admits, starting to color on her designer jeans with the gel pen.
"Truthbending. You are a very classy stage actress, who now is definitely not living with me. By day you are studying in school to learn engineering."
"I know literally nothing about that," Ty Lee says, cocking an eyebrow.
"Neither does anyone else here. Just say things about steam and impenetrableness," Azula says with a soft sigh.
Ty Lee finds Azula's old favorite perfume and sprits it all over herself. The room is then filled with the scent of lilac opium scent.
"You mean your father wouldn't approve of you dating an exotic dancer who became your secretary who then used your copious money to get a job in alternative medicine?" she asks as soon as she has made the room toxic.
Azula strongly doubts that her father believes in raiki or quiet psychic readings in dark rooms with ocean sounds in the background. She certainly doesn't.
"He probably wouldn't. So, that's easy. Just go with what I say. Honestly, we're going to have to do some improvisation because what if my brother somehow found a deeply hidden talent in our absence?" Azula says earnestly and Ty Lee has utterly given up on trying to talk her out of her anxieties.
It simply is not working this time.
"Then we have to top him?" Ty Lee asks dryly. She caps the gel pen and sighs.
"Yes."
"Well, I can do some party tricks probably. Like, oh, I can sword-swallow, and walk on my hands for like five minutes before getting too dizzy. Once I did ten but I threw up."
"I know. I was there. It was awful. Sword-swallowing is not an appropriate party trick. Neither is walking on your hands."
"I wasn't aware that this was a Fire Nation Prison Camp," Ty Lee grumbles to herself, before saying more brightly, "Okay, but the best most people can do is like fit their fist in their mouth or something."
"That is also not appropriate."
"Oh, my thumb is double jointed!" Ty Lee lifts up her hand and displays the grotesque quirk. Azula's lip twists into a snarl.
"Not a party trick. A deformity." Azula sighs.
"You're being mean again. There's no way your dad is going to approve of you being a jerk to your future wife."
"Well, he was such a jerk to his wife that she left him," Azula replies in a sugary sweet tone.
"Are there any notes in your lying-to-get-an-inheritance novel about how I am totally okay with all of your abandonment issues?"
"I don't have abandonment issues." Azula sits straight up.
Ty Lee starts laughing again and Azula just wants to run and get a flight out of Caldera as fast as possible. "Do you remember the time you lost me in the grocery store─?"
"It was a mall. Can we go back to the script? I need you to wear coral pink lipstick." Azula rummages again, looking for the coral pink shade.
"Why?" This is literally the most of absurd thing Ty Lee has ever done because Azula felt like it, and that is a huge statement.
"Because it has been decided that your lips must be coral pink," Azula states coldly. Although Ty Lee always forgoes lipstick, it just seems right for her lips to be coral pink.
"It has been decided by you, the control freak. I don't want to leave this reunion, because I love you, but I'm making a tally of every cruel comment and controlling thing you do and if it's over twenty, we're going to relationship counseling." If only Azula didn't hate therapists so much.
Azula, reminded yet again of her need for dominance and how it bothers Ty Lee, sighs and decides to save her relationship by generously offering, "Fine, what do you want to add to our portfolio?"
Ty Lee does not even have to think about it. "The fact that I am the one who has made all of the sacrifices in our relationship."
"What? That's absurd," Azula says coldly, her golden eyes flashing.
"Name one sacrifice you've made." Ty Lee cocks an eyebrow and taps her fingers on the chair expectantly.
"I buy you things and I actually apologized to you once which is the only real apology I have ever given anyone," Azula says and rests her case. "If that apology does not count as a symbol of my undying love for you, I don't know what does."
Ty Lee just slowly shakes her head with a wicked smile. "Well, I decided to leave my stable dream job to help you get it together. I am the only person who coaxes you out of bed in the morning when you say you're giving up. I always let you win in arguments even when you are super wrong. Since you refuse to cooperate with anyone else in your life, given that you have no friends, I have to drop everything whenever you need something, because I am the Azula Whisperer."
"You can put that last part in the portfolio. I like it." The Azula Whisperer. That's gorgeous.
"Oh, right, and every time we inevitably break up because of your awful transgressions, I come back," Ty Lee says, jabbing her finger into the air.
There is a brief silence.
Azula looks at her feet as she thinks about what this truly means for them."You make this sound really depressing."
"I know." Ty Lee frowns and thinks about her words as well.
"Are we...? Are we awful for each other?" This comes up too often, but they always brush the question aside and change the subject.
Of course, right now, at Azula's family reunion, does it all burst.
"Sometimes. Duh. We break each other's hearts constantly. I mean, I've lost count of the betrayals at this point. But we'll always fight, but we'll make up too. And yes I'm pretty sure I'm the only person you've regretted upsetting." Ty Lee shrugs and Azula thinks she might be right.
"And, honestly, as I feel about my own, I'd have to say that the good and bad qualities of our relationship are one and the same," Azula adds.
"You want to know why we hurt each other so bad? Because we've known each other our whole lives, and admit it you so love me. I'm going to love and stand by you absolutely no matter what. I don't care if you burn down this house by noon tomorrow, or if maybe you probably shouldn't be trusted with scissors or any actual responsibilities that you have. But, since we're close..."
"We both know exactly where to stab the knife," Azula finishes.
"Let me be totally honest, I didn't read any of the script you gave me on the plane, but if I were to propose to you tonight, I would say that I'd rather be married to broken jade than smooth clay." Ty Lee smiles and bats her eyelashes, hoping for Azula to swoon, but knowing she won't.
"Did you make that up?" Azula asks, truly startled.
"Nah, I stole it from a book. But it fits us so well, right?"
"I didn't know you could read."
"Shut up."
"Let's get married."
"Be more romantic."
"Let's get married or I will kidnap you." Azula reaches into her pocket and picks up the ring that she meant to flaunt in front of her family as she beautifully proposed and watched everyone's faces contort with pure agony.
"More romantic. I just gave you a damned poem about how you are beautiful even when messed up, and that's all you've got?" Ty Lee does not notice the ring even though the rock could knock out a platypus bear.
"Fine. I would say that there is no marriage like a marriage to me, because a marriage to me is mandatory," Azula offers.
"Just let me propose." Ty Lee does not think this will go well. "That broken jade quote is really impressive."
Azula's patience shatters. "I am the good with words one! You stole it from a book. I could sell ice to a Water Tribesman! You would be fortunate to be proposed to by me in front of my entire family to make them feel horrible about what failures they are because none of them could get such a hot and perfect wife, who no one questions as being perfect for me!"
"I'm questioning!" Silence. "No, I'm really not questioning. That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard."
"So, should we just go for already engaged?"
"Why not?"
"I have to redraft everything now." Azula groans, picking up the binder again, and Ty Lee pries the ring she just noticed from her hands.
