A/N: The world is a really sad place right now so I think it's a good time for some shameless fluff (very slice of life fluff).


#113: Love Me for Me
Prompted By: Fake Nails Real Heart

Azula has a deep, intense fear she always keeps to herself, that no one else knows.

She is afraid that no one will ever love her for her, and not for what she has done or what she will become. So far, she is fairly certain no one has, and often she doubts anyone ever will.

Yet, still, she is in a committed, long term relationship with her adolescent sweetheart, all of these years after their falling out.

They lounge side by side in the palace, basking in the sunlight. They moments ago got home from running a few errands around Caldera and finally can relax.

It seems peaceful and perfect until Ty Lee starts to sniffle, and her eyes well with tears.

Azula knows already why Ty Lee has suddenly started crying. The former Kyoshi Warrior has always loved the broken and unwanted and imperfect. And today at the marketplace Azula forced her to reject something broken and unwanted and imperfect.

Princess Azula does not want to concede, but she also is in utterly no mood to deal with Ty Lee moping all night. Anyway, it may look like a kind gesture and earn her some points in the eyes of her live-in long-term girlfriend.

"It's that oddly shaped pear at the market, isn't it?" asks Azula with a sigh. Ty Lee sniffles and nods. "Get up. We'll go buy it."

Ty Lee beams and wipes away her tears as she leaps to her feet.

Azula suppresses a smile of her own, maintaining her cold and statuesque demeanor at great effort.

Ty Lee secretly notices.

She always does.

[X]

That night, after Ty Lee tucks in her deformed pear beside the potted plants on Azula's windowsill, she greets her girlfriend with a kiss as Azula leaves her long scented bath and enters the room.

Azula strides smoothly over to the bed and Ty Lee follows her.

As the princess sits down, Ty Lee shifts behind her and begins to massage her shoulders and back. She does know all the exact places to press.

"Thank you for taking me to get the pear, Princess," says Ty Lee warmly as she digs her hands into Azula's rolling shoulders.

"It was nothing." Pause. "But would you have gone to get it anyway? If I told you not to, would you still have gone back for it?"

"No," says Ty Lee, and Azula cannot help but feel the answer is forced. Ty Lee may not be lying, but Azula is observant enough to see more layers are involved here. "I love you. Your happiness is really important to me, even if it means I'm upset about something."

Azula pulls away from the massage. Ty Lee's lips part in nervous shock.

"You can't do that. You can't put my happiness ahead of yours and call that love. It will just make you tired of doing it, and eventually lead to resentment. That isn't love."

"You just don't seem really happy, and it hurts to see you that way. It makes me happy when you're happy, Azula. I mean that." And she does, and Azula is loath to admit she sees it, because she cannot find happiness or pain in other people. She never had empathy, and once upon a time it was a strength, but after the war it seems to be a weakness.

"I never was like my uncle and brother. I never could find serenity in submission and peace in resignation," she says, moving closer to Ty Lee again.

"Then maybe you can find that happiness in something else." Someone else, Ty Lee wants to say.

"If only it were that easy."

Azula kisses Ty Lee on the nose, and then the cheek.

The clearest thing to everyone who cares about Azula, including herself, is that the world made her into a weapon and then told her to find peace.

[X]

How do you love someone who does not believe they can be loved?

Azula and Ty Lee both must ask themselves that, because it defines too much of their relationship. Ty Lee, neglected, used to having to fight for love and attention. Azula, idolized but only for what she had done and what she could become. Neither had been properly loved for a moment in their lives.

And here they are trying to love each other somehow.

They sit out in the courtyard as Ty Lee softly, lackadaisically pushes Azula a few inches at a time on an old, weathered swing Iroh built once upon a time for his son, niece and nephew. Flowers surround them and creatures of nature sing serenades in the background.

"Oh look, Azula, a bunny, a bunny!" Ty Lee stops pushing her girlfriend to coo over the confused animal bounding around in front of them.

Azula rolls her eyes pointedly. "This garden is full of them. It is not exactly a novel experience to see one."

"I wanted to see one today. This morning I was thinking about bunnies and I got to see one. That makes it a really good day for me."

The bunny escapes into the thick courtyard foliage.

Azula turns around on the swing to gaze at Ty Lee. "You see everything with this remarkable reverence and joy. It never fails to surprise and intrigue. It fascinates me."

"I've never fascinated anybody before." Ty Lee blushes.

"Well, you have now." Azula winks. Ty Lee's heart flutters in her chest.

No one ever gave them what they give each other.

They were unused fireworks before they fell in love, just withering away and waiting to be lit.

And so Ty Lee cannot help but gush, "You're so incredible and amazing and beautiful and smart and every day I'm so super grateful that the Universe thought to come up with you."

"And you have twisted your perception of me into something greater than I am. Just like my father, my country… and they all changed their minds eventually. People who find me perfect - and I cannot blame them for such an easy mistake - always end up disappointed."

"Azula, I know you have flaws. You're manipulative and cold and brutal and you have a short temper and pretty much no patience and you clip your toenails on our bed sometimes and you steal all the blankets when we sleep and won't give them back and you're rude to your brother and my family and you never bothered to learn any of my sister's names and you totally backwash but still want to share a drink with me. You're not perfect, but you're perfect for me."

And Princess Azula, for one of the sparse few times in her life, is left speechless.

[X]

Azula and Zuko sit in his office, poring over papers and suggestions and both on the verge of just burning the city down. Azula licks her lips and then decides upon a suggestion that her father would approve of, and therefore Zuko will probably decline.

She says, "The people need something to entertain them, to take their minds off of the economy while we perfect these policies."

"A royal wedding might be exciting," replies Zuko and Azula laughs coldly.

"Oh, do you suddenly have a suitor? Oh, ZuZu, be realistic."

"I'm talking about you and Ty Lee."

"Excuse me?"

"Are you even going to take further steps with her? Are you going to marry her? Or are you just going to let her wait on you until you get tired of her and she goes back to the life she left?"

"No one has ever called Ty Lee giving up everything to come live with me a wise decision. I cannot say I disagree with them."

"Can I give you some advice?" says Zuko, sounding oddly concerned and compassionate. Azula does not like that one bit.

"I would prefer to be pecked to death by a flock of raven-vultures," she purrs.

He knew she would say something like that, and so he states firmly, "I'm giving it to you anyway."

"What kind of advice?" Azula barely refrains from rolling her eyes.

"About you and Ty Lee."

Azula scoffs and cackles mockingly as Zuko remains composed and statuesque. "No woman wants you. The ground wouldn't want you to rot in it. Why should I take your advice on romance?"

Zuko sighs, as exasperated as he always is by his little sister.

He says, feeling a little uncomfortably like his uncle as he speaks, "Love goes both ways. Real love does, at least. Can you remember that for me, even if you don't take my advice?"

She scowls briefly and then composes herself. "I will take it under advisement."

He cannot ask for much more than that.

[X]

Azula and Ty Lee wake up in each other's arms, bathed in sunlight. The elysian moment of waking up and slowly noticing each other breaks when Azula makes a tired, bleary-eyed confession.

"I thought a lot about death last night. My funeral, the world without me."

"You want to die?" Ty Lee's voice trembles.

"No," insists Azula coldly. "I am not suicidal." She takes a slow, soft breath. "Doesn't everyone daydream about dying from time to time?"

Ty Lee rolls over and gazes at her. Azula almost shivers. The way Ty Lee looks at her always gets under her skin. Ty Lee's protuberant eyes gleam with such love and passion. No one else has ever looked at Azula that way. Like they need her.

Ty Lee says softly as she strokes Azula's face, "The sun still rises on people who fail. We get second chances. We always do."

Azula pries Ty Lee's hand away, but holds it softly once it is off of her body. "I want to believe you. I really do. You have a way of making things so glisteningly optimistic and I envy you for it. But I can't believe in it."

"I know that. But I'm gonna keep trying because I love you."

Azula kisses her, and while still close enough to feel Ty Lee's breath, she whispers, "I love you too."

And Ty Lee cannot stop smiling for the rest of the day.

[X]

Ty Lee looks at Azula and sees a lightning strike in a hurricane, if it had lovely golden eyes and a heartbeat. She cannot stop smiling at her as she holds Azula's feet down during their work out, watching Azula's lips get closer and closer to hers with every ferocious sit-up.

"Fift… fifty-uhm, uh, I lost count again." Ty Lee giggles as Azula smirks and slowly shakes her head. "You're just so pretty. I can't keep track when I'm looking at you."

Azula does another sit up, and this time presses her lips fiercely against Ty Lee's as she reaches them.

[X]

Ty Lee has learned one thing for certain the way she grew up, the way she fell in love with a monster, that if you are not fed love and attention from a golden spoon you start to lick it off of knives.

And if anything is licking love off of a knife, it is loving Azula and being in a relationship with her.

Watching her erupt. Watching her burst.

Being the subject of her wrath by accident of being in the same room as her.

Like now.

And Ty Lee usually diffuses things by staying completely calm as Azula rages.

But today, tonight, right now, she cannot keep calm.

"I left my whole life to be with you. Don't treat me this way, please."

Azula smirks bitterly and Ty Lee feels infinitesimally small. "To me, that sounds an awful lot like your personal decision. I owe you nothing for it."

"I didn't say you owed me anything. I just think you must love me too, if I love you enough to do that. I think maybe it means we're meant to have a future together here, like this."

"I would burn this place down with everyone in it, including you, if the whim struck me."

"Including me?"

Azula huffs. "Well, perhaps I would rescue you at the last second."

"You should. I do a lot for you."

"Do not make me feel guilty. I-I-"

"I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. I do a lot for you for me. I do a lot for you because it makes me feel good to make your life better."

"I want you to be happy. How can you be happy if I'm your whole world?"

"How could I not be?"

"Maybe…" Azula squeezes her eyes shut and then opens them again with a soft silent sigh. "Love goes both ways. Real love does at least. I enjoy the servitude, I do, but if you want us to work long-term you need to tell me what you want in return. You are never clear about what you need. What do you need?"

"Azula…" It feels like a trap. But it isn't.

"What do you need? What do you need most from me?"

"I need you to tell me you love me and I really need you to mean it," whispers Ty Lee.

"I love you like fire loves dry forests, like earth loves fresh rainfall, like air loves cherry blossom petals and like water loves waves."

After a long but comfortable silence, they both pull each other into a kiss.

Ty Lee fell in love with her. But she does not just stay with her by default as if she could not love someone else. She stays with Azula because she chooses to, every day that she wakes up, every day that they fight or lie or disappoint each other. Ty Lee chooses Azula over and over again, and Azula chooses her.

Because Ty Lee loves Azula for Azula.

And Azula loves Ty Lee for Ty Lee.