A/N: This is a combo of two prompts but it's listed under the same title, it's both 'The Boy in the Iceberg' and "The Mean Parent is Not Who You Expect'.
(Theme Eighty) Melodrama at the Theatre
(As Prompted By) GuitarBOSS
Ty Lee has never seen The Boy in the Iceberg. It never crossed her mind to bother, even though it is supposed to be hilarious ─ it has now been revived as an actual parody, something that perhaps the Ember Island Players can accomplish. Perhaps.
No one was planning on mentioning it again, for fear of the new Fire Lord declaring it treason. A new ending and portrayal was offered to Fire Lord Zuko, but he had to admit, when he thought about it (and perhaps at the pleads of Toph and Sokka), it would be preserving history in posterity. And, it could be a great parody making light of a horrid war.
The only condition, to the surprise of the Ember Island Players, was that they put Zuko's scar on the right side.
(Sokka also demanded that he be allowed to add amended jokes.)
(Toph also refused to be played by a woman.)
And so, Zuko revived the family tradition of summers on Ember Island, having the vacation palace cleaned for his arrival, and feeling oddly glad to give Izumi a glimpse of his childhood not riddled with pained memories.
But taking vacations with children feels like an illegal form of torture.
And taking vacations with both Zuko and Azula probably is an illegal form of torture, Ty Lee must admit. In fact, Mai is currently hiding within the ferry, pretending to be taking a nap, since Azula has been clearly restraining a devastating outburst since the trip was announced.
Ty Lee is sitting on the edge of the ferry, the sun beating down on her back and neck. She squints at her wife and brother-in-law as they seem to be on the verge of a battle to the death, only two hours into the holiday.
"Don't you dare call this educational. It just sounds terrible." Azula narrows her eyes at her brother, even if she knows that it is too late. "They're much too young to go and sit quietly at a theatre."
"We did just fine," Zuko protests with an upturned palm and Azula scoffs.
"No. No we didn't. I'm fairly certain our mother slipped us sedatives," is her earnest response. Passionflower tea with a few additives other than sugar, passed off as a treat to the little ones...
Zuko frowns. "Well... those aren't okay for children."
"Do you actually not condone one of our mother's actions?" Azula scathingly asks, her sentence punctuated by a small scoff.
Ty Lee had no intention of getting involved in the conversation, but she can't help it now.
"No, sedatives are fine for kids," Ty Lee insists loudly. "My mom used to give them to me and my sisters. She would just line up a row of cups of juice and just, you know, one by one, off to sleep for the afternoon."
The royal siblings both laugh at that, even if Ty Lee was being completely serious. She does faintly giggle, and Azula strides away from her brother to sit beside someone who will agree with everything she says instead of being stubborn and wrong all the time.
"How about you fake an injury and we can go home? What will it cost me?" Azula whispers as she leans into the sunlight.
"I actually think this is going to be fun," Ty Lee says brightly and Azula looks at her as if she just pushed her out of a tree. "No, don't do that face. Our family has zero traditions, you know? I think that this one could be adorable."
"Hmph." Azula just crosses her arms.
"Nooo, not that face." Ty Lee raises two fingers menacingly and Azula is too apathetic to resist.
Despite the fact that she nearly falls off of the ferry when Ty Lee tries to poke her lips out of their quite comfortable pout.
[X]
It is a wonder that Izumi waits over twenty minutes to demand, "Are we there yet?"
"No. The house is on the other side of the island," very calmly replies Zuko and Azula for some reason seethes with hatred in the back of the carriage.
She is clueless as to why he is so happy about starting this awful tradition of taking their children to the Ember Island players every summer. It makes her want to scream, but she tries to stay focused on her daughter.
Her daughter, who did not wait over twenty minutes to start acting out from boredom, is trying to get Azula to snap out of her bitter reverie.
And so, to Azusami, "Stop hitting me," Azula says sharply, her eyebrow twitching. "Stop hitting me. Stop."
Zuko turns around and half-smiles, baffling Azula even further.
"It's like a wonderful journey back in time," Zuko remarks, his satisfied smirk widening.
"Stop hitting me," Azula snarls, and she pokes her daughter away. Of course, Azusami instantly bursts into howling, wailing tears.
"You cut me!" shrieks the little girl and Izumi's jaw drops in response. Now, the crown princess does not think she could ever get away with that, even with dad.
Ty Lee grimaces. Well, now this is about to collapse like a very shoddy sandcastle. She tries to summon the energy to calm Azusami, but Zuko and his peculiar good mood jumps in with a mocking insult.
"Azula, why did you hurt your child like that?" Zuko asks teasingly, hoping to avert a devastating disaster with humor, but she is not listening.
"I did not," Azula begins before sighing. Azusami is still sobbing like a mortally wounded animal. "Come here. Come here, it's okay. I didn't mean to cut you."
Azula takes the little girl into her arms as Ty Lee forces the carriage to be pulled over with a sigh. And so, Azula takes her daughter in her arms as Izumi leaps into the glorious freedom of the sandy side of the road.
She examines Azusami's arm, to find that it is not even reddened, despite the light white scratch from Princess Azula's nails. Ty Lee has no patience for that, but Azusami burrows into Azula and tries to hide from her mean mom.
"Ugh, you have to tell her that she deserved that," Mai sighs as she is yanked from her half-nap.
"No. It's..." Azula's eyebrow twitches as Azusami lets out another guttural howl.
"What did you do to her?" Izumi asks in abject horror. She thinks maybe her little cousin isn't just manipulating her aunt.
"It escalated. She was punching me and so I poked her away and apparently it hurt really badly." Azula is still holding Azusami. The little girl is clinging and wailing right at Azula as she catches a glimpse of Ty Lee leaving the carriage with a sour look in her protuberant eyes.
"Alright, this is the last time I tell you to scold our child," Ty Lee snaps after taking a split second to stretch her legs.
"Oh Agni, it actually is a journey back in time." Zuko can not-quite-fondly remember mother muttering that at their father about his sister.
"Do you have any suggestions or just cruel comments?" Azula demands and Azusami starts crying again.
Zuko steps outside, and now the entire royal family of the Fire Nation save for a disinterested Mai are standing on the side of a rural Ember Island road, surrounding a screaming little princess.
"Let me show you." Zuko stands and takes Azusami from a reluctant Azula.
He sets her down as she pouts and shouts, "You can't yell at me! You're not my dad!"
And Zuko says, very calmly, "I'm not going to yell at you. Because I am not angry, I am just disappointed."
Azula is about to laugh mockingly at his terrible parenting before Azusami sniffles once and then is silent. Now that is just absurd.
"Azula, you should do that sometime," Ty Lee remarks as she sees Azusami mumbling an apology to her Uncle Zuko.
Wordlessly, Azula glares at her wife again.
[X]
They are at last at the remodeled Summer Palace, which has been in disuse of the past few years. Children did not seem to lend itself towards vacationing, of which both sets of parents are incredibly aware. The play begins in a few hours, and Azula has secluded herself to a sun porch, staring out at one of Ember Island's world renowned sunsets with a cup of lukewarm tea in her hand.
Azula is interrupted and groans.
"Why are you so unpleasant anyway? I'm serious. I've asked you a million times." Ty Lee crosses her arms and steadies her stance. Azula can see she has no intention of leaving and that somehow makes this abysmally hot evening even worse.
"Because Zuko has clearly lost it. Just entirely."
"Is this because he did better parenting than you? It's not like he's that great either. I'm pretty sure I'm the only mean parent in this family. That's why they both fear me so much."
"No, while yes, our daughter is disgustingly unafraid of my wrath ─"
"What wrath?" Ty Lee snorts with laughter. "I think the most you have ever punished her is very briefly taking away an active shrapnel mine before she cried and you gave it back."
Azula does not laugh and now Ty Lee is doubly concerned.
"While she is unafraid of my wrath," Azula reiterates, ignoring the flush in Ty Lee's cheeks from the absurdity, "I'm most annoyed by my brother and his audacity."
Ty Lee walks away from the door she was subtly blockading and sits down on Azula's lap uninvited. Azula briefly, as she sometimes does, finds herself missing the days in which Ty Lee just did whatever she said, or when Azula could just burst into violent hysterics and make everyone feel terrible about themselves.
It does feel nice, admittedly.
"What is his audacity anyway?" Ty Lee asks with a hopeful smile. Maybe Azula is just being defiant because she hates that it was Zuko's idea.
"His audacity is the fact that the consolation prize of having a horrible childhood is the fact that when you grow up, you can make your own family and your own traditions that your children wind up hating. I am righteously sickened by the fact that he has suddenly become so nostalgic for something so awful." Azula moves to cross her arms, finds she cannot, and then just loosely wraps them around Ty Lee's waist.
Ty Lee quite suddenly understands. "Well, you could tell him he's being just like your father and devastate him for two weeks until Mai forces you to apologize again."
Her lips twitch playfully, and she moves to kiss Azula before realizing that this cannot be remedied by mocking Zuko. She really is upset about it.
"This is absurd. And I am tired of playing into his ego." Azula leans back, jostling Ty Lee's body. "I am also livid that you begged to come along in the first place. And more livid that I allowed it."
Ty Lee just swallows. "I think it'll be fun, okay?"
It isn't going to make Azula feel much better, but Ty Lee does lean in and kiss her, and then drag her lips to Azula's neck. That might make her feel slightly better, as Ty Lee is rolling up the bottom of her sheer skirt.
But then someone clears their throat. "Well hi. Clearly I am interrupting, but we're apparently leaving."
Mai. At least, Azula supposes as she suppresses the heat that was slowly spreading up her thighs, someone else is as miserable as she is.
[X]
Alright, Azula has to admit, perhaps on a scale of one to ten this awful play was a solid twelve.
It was delightfully, delightfully horrid. Oh, and the ending! Alright, perhaps it is very distinctly parody in order to avoid being branded as treason, but Azula was watching raptly even as her daughter squirmed and jabbed Ty Lee and started wrestling with Izumi on the balcony before Mai picked them up by the scruffs of their necks like kittens and removed them.
"Next time we should dress up!" Ty Lee squeals, as they lean against the walls of the playhouse.
Zuko is escorting two little girls to buy souvenirs. To buy all of the souvenirs, as it seems.
"As what? As ourselves?" Azula asks with a tiny, derisive snicker. "I do hear that Zuko only allowed the play to be revived if his scar was on the right side..."
"No, we go as each other, right?" Ty Lee says excitedly, already fantasizing about the hilarious time she and her best friends will have. "It would be so, so, so fun. I mean, we don't go as just you and me, we all dress up as each other. Ooo, we could totally do waaay better acting than those people too. You'd be a great actress! You're always acting!"
"I will give you that. But I also have no intentions of ever returning." Azula shrugs. She probably could play any of those three better than the people on the stage.
"Still?" Ty Lee whines, giving Azula her most persuasively adorable gaze. "Oh, come on. You totally loved it! I tried to put my hand on your thigh and you smacked it away because you were watching!"
"Shush. People will think I approve of this vacation if you shout such slander about me," Azula hisses haughtily before turning her nose up.
"We could go tomorrow," Ty Lee offers, batting her eyelashes and touching her hip to her wife's.
"No." Silence.
Right on cue, Azusami and Izumi come careening through the packed corridors, both clutching streamers in opposing colors and leaving Zuko laden with their other purchases.
"Moms! Moms! Moms!" Azusami shrieks and Azula desperately wants to hide from the now gawking peasants. She was hoping they would not notice her. "Can we come back tomorrow? Can we?"
"Yes!" Ty Lee declares, and Azusami grins.
"I can't believe it!" She hugs Ty Lee tightly from below, nearly dropping her blue paper. "Mama said yes to something!"
Ty Lee laughs rather wickedly, because now Azula can't say no.
"Using our child against me..." mutters the sullen princess.
[X]
Beneath a star-studded sky, Azula sits near the beach with another lukewarm tea, looking at the two children locked in play combat. She isn't sure if she wants to laugh mirthlessly or vomit even more mirthlessly.
Ty Lee is beside her in silence, still relishing in her victory using Azula's weakness for Azusami.
But the blissful quiet is broken when Ty Lee says, "I really am amazed by how we can buy those children absolutely every expensive toy under the sun and they're most entertained by pieces of paper."
"Fake weapons. Kids love them." Azula shrugs. "Although they are real firebenders..."
"Are you suggesting that our daughter and niece have a legitimate Agni Kai on the beach?" Ty Lee giggles.
"It would cheer me up, yes." Azula sighs and sets down her tea. "Let's go to our room and let Zuko deal with the mess he caused. The only good thing that will come of this vacation is our ability to have some privacy."
Ty Lee does not protest as Azula seizes her hand without another word and they disappear into the summer home, locking their door.
Yes, the privacy is definitely well-utilized.
