(Theme Eighty-Six) The Things I Do for Love
(As Prompted By) GuitarBOSS & YouNeverCanTell
It is past midnight, and Azula is not sure why she is doing this in the first place.
This is the most disappointing use of her dreadful speaking lessons that she can possibly imagine, but so help her she is going to impress this woman, even if that means trying to explain to an indignant eight year old that her entire presentation is terrible and she is going to fail if she does not listen.
So far, it has resulted only in a snapped brush and inkwell thrown across the room.
Not by Azula. Honestly.
"You are a horrible teacher!" shrieks the little girl and Azula sits, stony-faced.
"No, you are just awful at learning and have no imagination or desire to succeed. And terrible time management skills seeing as I am doing this in the middle of the night while everyone else is sleeping away! I don't even know where your mother is, but I'm fairly certain she isn't coming back and she was lying when she said she just had to go the store and she abandoned you forever because of how awful you are at school projects."
"What?" she whispers, now abandoning the paper altogether as she glares at the person she thought was fun.
And then she starts making the most horrific sound Azula has ever heard in her life.
This is a horrible test and Azula thinks that she is going to quit.
"No, please stop crying. Stop making that noise. Stop making that noise. I will write your entire essay for you if you stop making that noise," Azula pleads sharply, but it only serves to make the little girl fly into further hysterics. "Your mother is not abandoning you. She's just indecisive about whatever it is you're making."
The excruciating sound does stop, but the little girl continues softly sobbing. Azula has a crisscross of parental urges that she cannot quite explain; one of them is to instantly apologize and make the child think she is the best in history, while the other is to just backhand her into the wall.
"I just want you to do it for me," the child whispers and Azula begins to take the parchment before realizing exactly what is happening here.
"You're being impossible just so you don't have to do things," Azula says and the little girl shakes her head too quickly. "It's not exactly reinventing the wheel. Stop making that noise! I am going to go to that school and just burn it to the ground. I don't care if I go to pris─"
The sound ceases and Azula stops her exasperated rant when the door finally opens. Azula straightens her posture and sets the paper down.
"Are you two making any progress?" Ty Lee asks so sweetly and Azula's eyebrow twitches.
"Yes, of course. Certainly more important progress than whatever you are doing with imitation silk and those ridiculous crafting supplies," Azula says and Ty Lee completely ignores her as she kicks the door shut with her heel.
"It's not ridiculous. You just have to be showy and look like you did a lot of work." Ty Lee laughs cavalierly and shrugs, as if this is not the most monumental exercise in frustration in history.
"No, you have to be verbally entertaining, memorable and have actual schoolwork beyond your years if you want to do anything with your life," Azula corrects in a slippery sweet tone that nearly covers up how close she is to snapping.
Azula has spent the last six months in the exploit of winning the heart of Ty Lee, who has a child. That requires giving the child copious gifts, being kind, and fulfilling that fun aunt status in order to make sure she is so beloved and admired that Ty Lee could not dispute her parenting skills.
Girls like Ty Lee love parenting skills.
"She's eight," the ex-acrobat interjects as she sits down on the tatami mat beside the coffee table and lays out her supplies.
"Right now in her life is the most important time to learn this. Don't you want her to have a bright future?" Pause. No effect. "I imagine that's why you're dating me."
"Of course." Ty Lee just shrugs. "And you're dating me because you don't have any better options."
"I do."
"Nuuuupe."
"I could date whoever I wanted to. I could date warlord whatever from this stupid school project if I want to."
"He's dead. And a guy. And you're way better at conquering than him."
"Clearly. I did conquer the entire Earth Kingdom at fourteen, and I was only capable of doing it because I know how to focus my sentences on the point."
"Nobody conquers the Earth Kingdom by being good at writing stupid essays!"
"Well, I'm pretty certain I conquered the Earth Kingdom and you didn't. Oh, and your mom helped slightly. By being excellent for morale."
"That's kind of sweet, and so thank you for good effort at a compliment. But help me with this thing. I don't even know what we're making so I just got some of everything that I could buy at three in the morning."
"So, illegal organs, drugs and a box of matches?"
"No. Some yarn and stuff.
"Right, and you will be doing this while she sits here and makes the sound of someone scraping metal across a wall while punching a cat?"
"She's going to do her own work. I'm helping because she's eight."
Azula's fingers twitch and Ty Lee thinks she saw a spark, but the princess composes hersel and forces a very pathetic excuse for a smile. Ty Lee bats her eyelashes and looks at the odd glue she bought from the creepy pawn shop on the East Side. She thinks that Azula probably now regrets her offer to help with the situation of homework, and this is the absolute best way to test her.
Ty Lee can be conniving too. "I got treats. Every time she gets another sentence and it's good, we give her a treat."
The little girl's eyes light up wide at that, and Azula clenches her jaw. That is a terrible idea, but she keeps her mouth shut as Ty Lee begins the saccharine act of tossing a child treats like a poodle-monkey she's training.
Azula attempts not to break as she thinks about all she will gain if she can remain that awesome, tolerant parental figure, and not someone who has quite the severe tongue lashing in her head for a girl this spoilt.
"She's written two sentences, how has she gotten six treats?" Azula snaps vehemently halfway through Ty Lee chiming treat again, just for her daughter offering a word or two to say.
Ty Lee pouts and Azula decides against standing down. But the acrobat nods and sets down the bag.
"Okay, yeah, I have given you too many treats. I broke my own rule," Ty Lee says and Azula struggles to read her intentions in the dead of the night, when she is pushed to the edge of a nervous breakdown by an assignment about cruel important ancient Fire Nation figures.
And the girl's jaw drops. "That's not fair! You're the meanest!"
And Azula has zero patience anymore, and no longer remotely cares about maintaining her manipulative reputation. "She is not the meanest, and that is completely ridiculous. I am rather impressed by her ability to raise you when she was unable to even water a plant for the majority of her life, and I find it extremely attractive. I didn't even have a mom when I was your age."
"Did she abandon you because you're a horrible and mean teacher?" The little girl glowers.
Azula hesitates for a beat, but she prevents her very Ozai-esque reflexive reaction, and decides on a different path. "No. She abandoned me because I sold my younger sister to human traffickers at three in the morning two blocks away from here. Do you think they're still working, Ty Lee? I mean, I have no want for money, but you can easily make a thousand gold pieces for a child."
Ty Lee giggles before realizing herself. "That's not true. She just made that up, I swear. Her mom abandoned her because she had personal problems of her own, and nobody is abandoning anybody tonight, or selling a child to human traffickers."
"What if we traded her for a more grateful daughter?" Azula turns up her palm with an earnest expression.
"Azula." Ty Lee now has to work to contain her exhausted amusement.
"If you're squeamish about that, we could totally sell a child to a circus in exchange for a lion-vulture or something," the princess purrs as her gaze turns to the squirming child.
"The circus doesn't actually buy children, that's just what parents say to scare their kids into behaving," Ty Lee hisses.
"You just told her that? You are in the absolute perfect position to lie to her for at least three more years, due to the fact that you worked at the circus. You should've told her a harrowing tale of your mother selling you to the circus because you misbehaved."
"Also not true." Ty Lee gags on her suppressed giggles.
"I'm trying to help you." Azula pauses. "See how much I scared you just by saying a few words. I seriously doubt I could do that with paper mache."
"I don't like you anymore!" the little girl shrieks without trying to look pitiful or innocent. Now she glows with rage.
Azula has won. "Well, if we're not friends or family I have no reason to write this essay for you."
The little girl doesn't even think before deciding, "I'm going to write my essay about you instead of Warlord Aki!"
"Good."
"It's not going to be nice!"
"Better."
"You're supposed to apologize and give me things!" Now she is crying, and Azula is beginning to realize just how fast her facade is fading.
"I am giving you the gift of my wisdom and marvelous level of restraint to have put up with this for hours."
"Ugh!" And, to that, the little girl seizes the paper and pen, sloshing ink over herself when she grabs the stone basin.
Azula smirks; victory is sweet. "Now remember, editorial pieces always should include disguised hyperbole and a detachment that makes it read like facts."
"I don't know what that means," she growls like a tigerdillo, and she is gone, but not before stomping her foot at the doorway and waiting.
Ty Lee blinks a few times, uncertain what to say. Azula then realizes how much of a dreadful mistake she has made, and that she probably does not look so wonderful in Ty Lee's admiring eyes anymore. Threatening to sell her child might just do that.
"I'm proud of you," Ty Lee says and Azula is bewildered, her bloodshot eyes briefly wide before she collects herself. "I am. I really didn't think you would ever discipline her or act like an actual authority figure. It was almost good parenting."
Ty Lee was testing her, and Azula totally passed and so now Ty Lee has left the paper mache behind and thrown her arms around the confused princess.
"Almost is far too tame a word for this torture," Azula whispers into her hair.
"You love us."
"No, I don't. I really do know a lot of human traffickers from the Triad, and I have never valued family before..."
"You looooove us."
"Yes, I have proven that by making your child hate me."
"You care if my child hates you. And you care enough to have come over here to help her write a last minute project."
"I only care because you are excellent for morale."
Ty Lee smiles and stops just short of kissing her girlfriend; she presses a treat into her hand instead. Azula has no response to that.
"You loooove us."
And for once, Azula does not argue against that word.
