(Theme Eighty-Four) Tough Love

(As Prompted By) xxlunareclipseoftheheartxx

The disgraced Princess Azula has become infatuated with a woman who might as well be her warden. She likes to imagine her life as a prison, despite returning home of her own volition. And her eyes and thoughts linger far too long on her keeper, her warden, her Ty Lee. She was an old flame, and nothing more. But Azula keeps forgetting that.

"You don't wear your uniform around me," Azula notices aloud, and Ty Lee's reaction could be read in multiple ways. Surprise, arousal, anger, shame... "Why is that?"

"It's not very comfortable, and I don't really care." Ty Lee shrugs, smiles, pretends to be that plastic person that Azula cannot imagine she is.

There has to be some kind of turmoil within her that Azula can exploit, to expose her intentions. Because Azula has this need that she wants to satiate, even though she should know better than to pursue it. Yes, Ty Lee might be the first person to just quietly be there alongside the princess, not forcing anything, not offering any opinion and only giving sweet, shallow chatter that Azula finds distracting in a pleasurable way when her mind has turned against her.

And on the other side, Ty Lee has become infatuated with someone who she swore to protect and not become entangled with. Zuko asked for her help, to be a bodyguard for those around Azula, and it was convenient with the Kyoshi Warriors remaining to deal with the turmoil rising rapidly.

But Ty Lee has done much more protecting of Azula than protecting of people she might hurt.

Her eyes linger when Azula changes her clothes, and Ty Lee is not sure if she is looking more at how Azula lets herself waste away into nothing, or the parts of her body that heat her up. But it does not matter which way, because Azula tolerates Ty Lee, and Ty Lee alone, mostly because Ty Lee has no major motives, and does not seem to want to fix Azula like everyone else.

[X]

Ty Lee's reports to Zuko begin to become inaccurate when Azula first decides to try training again. And Ty Lee is not sure how much she should watch, although Azula bending is probably the exact thing that Ty Lee has been hired to watch.

It is poetry in motion, and there is no other way to describe it. Azula stumbles, and she scratches at the insides of her palms when she does, some quiet punishment that Ty Lee has no reason to comment on. If it isn't life threatening, Ty Lee has decided that Azula can just go ahead.

She looks so beautiful surrounded in blue, instead of surrounded in the shadows of her own misery and her aura the shade of dried blood. Ty Lee's lips twitch with a smile as she gazes.

Azula goes inside, they move on.

"I'm sore," Azula says, and it is the only weakness she has commented on, among all of them. "Fix it."

Ty Lee suddenly bristles at Azula's request, and the princess watches, enraptured by it.

"Where are you sore," Ty Lee asks as plainly and sweetly as she can. She tries to keep it platonic, she really tries and she deserves some credit for that.

Yet, when her hands rub smooth skin, brushing over what Azula has let atrophy for reasons that make Ty Lee want to scream at her. When Ty Lee is massaging this girl she wants so badly that she can barely contain herself, it is impossible to maintain professionalism.

And Azula, who has felt actual life and power for the first time in an eternity, now wants to take what is hers, and Ty Lee wants it bad. She wants it too. And so she does more than allow it as the fire escalates.

They want to deny their attraction, but they cannot.

[X]

Azula gets Ty Lee into bed with her every night easily, seeing as she is improving so much. Everyone is so happy, even Suki, even people who hate Azula are happy to see how the princess is starting to brush her hair and walk more than a few steps and even occasionally talk to people (even if it is mostly clever insults). Ty Lee feels special in many ways, concerned in others.

While Princess Azula's progress has been monumental, she collapses one day. She has stretched herself to far. Willpower as much of a resource as muscles or bending and Azula has tried to run ten marathons and fight a thousand Agni Kais in a day, expecting to do it easily.

People offer her platitudes that enrage her, and then just make her miss the solace of giving up. It felt good, and the progress felt bad because being fixed disgusted her in the first place.

Her bed felt nice. Her plans of suicide were circumvented by both her horrid brother and her own desire to keep living, even if her existence was so pointless.

Azula does not speak to her warden, but Ty Lee does her job anyway. All of it save for the thrilling and inspired sex, of course.

But Azula is in this for herself, even if she prefers Ty Lee's company. She is in this for herself, and so when she decides to quit, she scoffs at the idea of anyone trying to coax her into trying again.

Ty Lee sits there in the evening, refusing to move as she reclines, watching Azula languish in her bed. Azula assumes she is thinking, but Ty Lee could never have the words or wisdom to light a single spark within the princess.

"I don't really understand why you always wanted to conquer the world and run the Fire Nation and master firebending and that you could do all that, but you don't think or want to do that stuff for yourself," Ty Lee says through her teeth as she chews on her fingernail.

Azula wants to just turn away, but her infatuation compels her to speak. "You don't have anything to say that hasn't been said to me before."

Ty Lee scrunches up her nose in thought and stops biting her nail.

"Mmm. No, I probably don't. But I'm not afraid to tell you stuff that isn't motivational speaking or, like, uh, gentle whispering," Ty Lee says brightly, and Azula looks her up and down. "Like the fact that I know what Zuko has that you don't, what Zuko has that makes him fit to be Fire Lord and you not."

"What?" Azula asks shrilly, sitting straight up with molten eyes.

Ty Lee shrugs and blinks and chews on her nail again for a few seconds in which Azula can barely restrain herself from strangling her.

"See, the most successful people need talent, charisma and skills, yeah, like you. But they also need pain, and scars and to be defeated over and over again before they win."

"I have all of that!"

"I'm not done." Ty Lee drops her hand and suddenly looks serious. "The people who are fit to be Fire Lord and to make history are the people who use suffering as an advantage and lose a lot of battles but never get defeated. Zuko has that, you don't, and that's why he's on a throne and you're curled up in your bed planning your suicide."

Azula feels the knife of utter betrayal and has no clue what to make of it. "This is so far from my fault. You are the most to blame, so how dare you sit there and speak to me about my brother deserving the throne and me deserving this."

Ty Lee shakes her head. "None of what happened to you is your fault. None of it. But the fact that you're miserable totally is. And I'm so not gonna pretend that it's so okay because your negative vibes are so not sexy. I know you're sick, and I know some bad things happened, but Zuko is Zuko which is like basically ten times more difficult to cope with than being sick, and have you ever thought about Zuko's life like, Azula. Yeah, you're worse at life than Zuko. Because when your dad burned Zuko's face off and banished him, he didn't do whatever this is. He got up and was all like, I'm gonna capture the Avatar and restore my honor."

Azula hesitates and then looks at her thinning legs and her dirty sheets. Then her overgrown, brittle fingernails and the drawn curtains.

She feels an awful lot like she has been sleeping for a thousand years and someone just woke her by dousing her with ice water.

"You disgust me," Azula says, sitting up despite the pain in her back. "You've thought that about me, despite acting like you want to help, like you actually cared about me for a second. You never did."

Ty Lee wants to break, can feel her emotions trembling, but she breathes in.

"No. I care about you enough to tell you the truth. I care about you enough that I haven't said a single thing about how much, like, and how much and..." Ty Lee bites her lip hard, flustered. "I've been quiet, and just done my job, because I know you and I know you don't want people to fix you. It takes a lot for a person like me to be able to do stuff like this and to give and... you are everything to me. You are everything to me and I want to scream at you all the time all the stuff you don't want to hear but you have to hear, you know?"

Azula breathes out, feeling dizzy.

Ty Lee's mouth is dry as she continues, "You take orders from one person. Yourself. I can't tell you what to do, but you have a lot to be fighting for so you better get up and do it because I don't care about your whining and about who you blame or about the past."

"You love me. If I am your everything you should be groveling and clinging and offering me everything to make me better. Not calling me a fuck up who brought this on myself!" Azula declares in a wrathful, commanding tone that Sozin would envy.

But Ty Lee closes her eyes and steels herself. She wants to do those things so much, but real love, real love that isn't between two teenagers means sometimes telling the person you love things they don't want to hear. Sometimes it means telling Azula that Zuko is a better Fire Lord than she would be, because it is the only way to stop Azula's pain.

"I can't let you do this to yourself just because it's risky to tell you the truth? No. I love you, and I can't watch you be in pain anymore. If that pain were from somebody else, I would block their chi and throw them in the ocean, but you're doing it to yourself." Ty Lee stands up, because she has to go, because she can see Azula's expression, she can see the manipulative words that are about to come.

It took so long to be strong enough to say those words to Azula, to try to help her. Ty Lee cannot let it get ruined because she is scared. She wants real love, real love, not just an echo of what they had before.

All she does before she leaves is grab Azula and kiss her and hope she won't get killed. She has this ridiculous hope that leaving that mark will somehow seal the words with the knowledge that they really do come from the person who loves her most of all.

Nobody can force Azula to change. Nobody can explain to her just why her failure happened and what she can learn from it. Nobody can make the decision to choose living and moving on.

But as the kiss breaks, Ty Lee thinks she can give her an incentive. Azula lingers, not sure if she should say the words she had planned to trap Ty Lee, or if she should spit in her face, or laugh. But Azula hungers for more, despite the conflicted feelings within her, and she takes another kiss by force and refuses to let go this time.

Azula has never felt crazier than when she realizes that she wouldn't mind kissing those abhorrently insolent lips every day.