#116: Hostage Situation
Prompted By: hotlips29
In the sweltering Ember Island evening, Azula, as usual, is working on volcanic stone and gem sculptures and jewelry when Ty Lee walks through the front door of the Summer Palace crying.
Abandoning the hobby Zuko forced on her that she is loath to admit she loves, Azula gets up and examines her crying wife with her hands on her hips.
Azula can tell immediately. They have both found a place on Ember Island. Azula teaches firebending and fights in the Arena for unnecessary money and glory, and Ty Lee tricked her into enjoying using her bending to create beautiful things.
Ty Lee, however, is returning to showbusiness.
"Your bitch boss again?"
"You wanna know what she made me do today?"
"Actually, I want to know why you are bothering to work when you are married to a princess. In fact, that makes you a Princess too. Just because Zuko forced me into this semi-exile with you as my babysitter doesn't mean you have lost the privileges of royalty."
"Azula, we've been over this. You got a second chance and I got my dream life. Forever on Ember Island with the most beautiful, smart, sexy, funny and scary woman in the whole world. But I want to have dreams outside of just being married. This is my opportunity to follow my calling of being a performer again."
"Yes, well I am certain you can find gainful employment under the power of someone who does not make me want to cut her tendons and burn her alive."
"That's… uh… specific."
"I have my fantasies." Azula flashes a dazzlingly wicked smile. Ty Lee blushes and purses her lips so tightly that her cheeks puff out to keep from giggling.
"I do love being the paramour of an evil queen."
They kiss, and it escalates all too quickly and perfectly pleasurably.
As they lie in bed after their frantic and passionate tumble, Azula turns to face her wife slash warden.
"I'm going to talk some sense into the woman."
"Azula, please. I'll do anything, absolutely anything, if you let me face this myself. I'm begging you. Princess, please."
Azula haughtily sighs and sits back down.
"I suppose I can stay uninvolved if you're willing to degrade yourself so much for it."
Yet, one of the greatest truths in the Universe is that Azula always lies.
[X]
Ty Lee still enjoys waking up in the morning, no matter how much she loathe seeing her boss's remarkably punchable face.
She tried to be sweet — still is, to be honest — and befriend the impossible bitch. But she had no luck whatsoever. Which is ridiculous because Ty Lee has never once in her life failed to befriend someone.
As she walks out she finds her wife lying outside in the sunrise. Ty Lee kneels down in one fluid, graceful motion and kisses Azula on the floorhead. Azula's lips contort into a tranquil smile as her eyes lazily open.
She grabs Ty Lee by the neck and pulls her into a brutal, rough, utterly deep and romantic kiss that lasts until their lungs alone rip them apart.
Ty Lee draws in a long dizzy breath that burns her insides like a warm hearth on a cold Kyoshi Island night. Then she remembers that if she lingers as her heart, soul and body demand, she will be a few minutes late, and it will be a disaster.
At least she gets to do what she loves there. At least she has great friends in her strange new world of marriage and semi-exile. But it all is tainted by the woman in charge.
Azula whacks Ty Lee on the arm, snapping her into the cold reality of the rush of waves, gusts of crisp sea wind and her wife's completely terrifying facial expression.
"Ty Lee, you refuse to let me meddle or find a new workplace, you need to learn to stand up for yourself. However, never to me, of course. We both know exactly how that last turned out." Azula huffs and dramatically sighs. "This would be far easier if you would let me handle it. I would tear her heart out and eat it in front of the entire boardwalk to make you happy and yet you rebuff the generosity of my love. It makes me sick."
"You loving me is the greatest thing that happened in the history of the entire world. But I gotta fight my own battles sometimes."
"You're concerned I will violate my contract with my brother."
Ty Lee blushes and tries to clear the uncomfortable lump from her throat in a dainty hem hem. "That too. Mostly that, actually."
"I'm a military genius, not just an incredibly powerful firebender. I also have more charm than anyone who has ever lived. Not all problems need to be solved with lighting. Bribes, intimidation, psychological warfare, emotional manipulation, a giant knife…"
Ty Lee fights a futile war to not give in and laugh. Azula winks at her.
"I have to go," admits Ty Lee. "I'll see you this evening! I love you."
"I know." Azula lies back down and cannot help but let her eyes drift to a naughty place as Ty Lee walks back into the palace. With a wicked sparkle in her gilded eyes she calls out after her wife, "I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave."
Ty Lee rolls her eyes, but her blush and silly grin belie her irritated front.
And maybe she struts a little more than usual when she walks out.
However, that wonderful confidence dies once she arrives at practice. Thankfully, her smile refuses to fade. She supposes that only happens in the most devastating of circumstances, and she does have amazing friends in the troupe who keep her giggling in between the dreadful emotional abuse from her wicked boss.
"You move like an elderly ox-elephant."
"That's not—"
"More back talk from the princess? You think sleeping your way to the top lets you do whatever you want? The bathroom is filthy. I want it so clean that you can eat off the floor. Because if you back talk one more time I will make you do exactly that."
Ty Lee wishes it bothered her more. She has gotten used to it by now, although she does punch the bathroom wall with intense vivacity once she walks inside.
She cannot tell her wife, but the truth is, Ty Lee knows she can manage until she proves herself because Azula treated her not unlike the wicked woman for years and years. And the occasional bad day even now.
All she can do is sigh and get to work.
Then she gets to go home to a place of luxury and love, and complain incessantly about the bitch in charge of her every move during the day.
Even if, granted, Ty Lee eagerly married the last bitch who was in charge of her every move.
[X]
Ty Lee comes home feeling her usual mix of determined and defeated.
But everything fades away when she sees her true love.
Like most little girls, Ty Lee grew up being told myths and fairy tales. Her sisters and friends grew out of them, but deep down, she never really did.
Her favorite was one about a cursed princess, rings of fire and the transformative power of true love's first kiss. She even mentioned it in her wedding vows not very long ago.
She, as everyone else did, assumed in the context of the story Ty Lee is the hero who slays the beast by fighting for and kissing the broken princess.
But as time goes by, Ty Lee becomes more and more certain that Azula is just as much the hero and Ty Lee is just as much the broken princess.
And it is hard not to think about kissing, volcanoes, true love and fairy tales when she sees Azula on their private beach, standing there with barely anything on. It sends an all too familiar voltage running through Ty Lee's skin.
She forgets her silly woes, stripping her clothes off as she runs to the ocean, immersed in happily ever after for at least a little while.
Ty Lee and her wife wade waist deep into the gently rolling waves and passionately lock lips and let their hands wander until they are breathless.
But the fire in the water, as always, remains.
Reality hits Ty Lee like a different, unwanted kind of lightning as Azula adjusts her hair.
Ty Lee sighs and softly admits, "I didn't get the part."
Her usually loud, bold and insufferably cheerful voice is fragile and barely audible over the waves.
Azula's clenched fists suddenly light ablaze, but Ty Lee is too accustomed to the outbursts to even bar an eye at it.
An incensed Azula exclaims, "That is absurd! That woman has crossed me for the last time! The ocean should already be running red with her blood! And I swear on my ancestors it will unless you explain to me why you are not only refusing my help but defying me!"
"You want me to explain? Okay. Do you ever think that maybe for once I just want to do something for myself? I might not be Avatar Kyoshi or Conqueror Ba Sing Se but I can be a celebrated performer and I can conquer the rough start it takes for ordinary people like me! Zuko gave you a chance to start over but he gave me one too! I want to make it on my own, not because I have noble blood or I'm the princess's friend or I'm some kind of war hero or war criminal or because I'm royalty now! I want to make it on my own!"
The silence deafens. Ty Lee manages to suppress a fit of tears, but only barely. Sadness fills her soul, anger rages in her bones, but an overpowering fear of Azula floods her blood as she waits for her wife to give a reply. Any reply. Anything at all.
At last, Azula insists in earnest, "I don't think you're ordinary."
"You… you don't?"
"Don't you dare offend me, Princess Azula the Conqueror, by suggesting I would ever marry someone ordinary."
Ty Lee just smiles.
She doesn't know what else to do but crush her lips against those of her cursed princess, her unstoppable hero, whichever she may be.
The truth of this new world together is the same for both of them. Sometimes it feels like it's killing them slowly, until these hot island nights that remind them that they have not only escaped dark fates but are violently, vibrantly alive.
And maybe that makes everything else, the messy history, the scar tissue that still aches, and being cast away to this island life somehow worth it.
At least tonight, neither woman has a single thing to complain about.
[X]
The next day, Ty Lee's situation seems even worse.
Mainly because she is actually impressing her boss for once. Until her wife shows up.
Beautiful and terrifying as ever, of course, which Ty Lee both loves and craves. Yet, just as controlling and domineering as ever too, arriving to solve a problem Ty Lee told her time and time again to leave alone.
Suppressing a sigh, Ty Lee wipes the sweat from her brow and strides into the cavernous main hall of the seaside theatre to see her wife speaking with Ty Lee's boss. Her tone is sickeningly sweet, but her barely perceptible smile half homicidal.
"Azula!" exclaims Ty Lee, mainly feigning her excitement to interrupt whatever her wife and boss are casually conversing about.
Azula waves, but continues talking.
Ty Lee tries her best to seem calm as she approaches them, getting close enough to hear and hopefully be included.
"Oh, come on," purrs Azula with a glint in her gilded eyes and a sickeningly sweet smirk. "There must be something you love more than anything else."
"My sparrowkeet."
Ty Lee's boss twirls her finger in her hair. The instinct to punch and punch and punch overwhelms Ty Lee. She wants to knock out her boss — who is like a hundred years old which is just ugh — for flirting with Azula, and she wants to knock out Azula for interfering after she said she wouldn't.
Suddenly, Ty Lee's boss says, "Ty Lee, you should be practicing. Unless you think flaunting your royal status is going to be enough to get you the lead in our first show of the season."
Azula clears her throat. "She doesn't have to flaunt her status, nor bow and scrape to anyone, to prove that she is one of the most accomplished acrobats in the history of the world. She conquered Ba Sing Se with a cartwheel. Show a little respect for her talent and rigorous practice. Unless perhaps you're just jealous. I imagine you are."
Ty Lee keeps her expression vacant but her face flushes redder and her fists clench harder with every word that leaves Azula's soft, sexy lips.
The woman who thought she was in charge until Azula arrived glares and grinds her teeth.
"How dare you! I am a distinguished and powerful woman who was not born into that power. I fought and clawed to become the leader of the Fire Nation's most acclaimed dancers and acrobats. With all due respect, your highness, please think before you speak that way to me."
Azula is silent. Ty Lee has no idea why.
"I'm sorry; I was too distracted by how uneven your eyebrows are to hear any of that." As Ty Lee's boss's eyes bulge, Azula smirks and turns over her shoulder to lock eyes with her wife. "Ty Lee, come with me. We're leaving."
And, like she has many times before, Ty Lee attempts to stay frozen in place, but is transfixed by the siren's song of Azula's spell, and scampers over to her Princess Charming.
They stride out of the theatre, Azula clutching Ty Lee's sweaty hand a little too tightly.
Once they reach the edge of the boardwalk, Ty Lee cautiously breaks free of her wife's grasp.
Ty Lee frowns and huffs, "You told me you would let me handle her on my own."
"Did I?" purrs Azula with a sly laugh. "Perhaps you read into my words a little too much."
Ty Lee rolls her eyes the moment Azula's gaze drifts from her.
"You did," whispers Ty Lee.
"You aren't having some kind of affair with that woman, are you? Her hatred for you being married to me is nearly hyperbolic."
"Ew!" Ty Lee playfully bats Azula's arm. "How could you even think I would be into that wrinkly bitch?"
"Well, you clearly are attracted to cold and ruthless authority figures who demean you. And athletic bisexual bodies but that is beside the point."
"She's way too much of an impossible bitch." Ty Lee smiles at Azula with a sly smile and fluttering of her eyelashes. "I need just the right amount of impossible bitch. That's one of the reasons I married you, princess."
"Because I'm just the right amount of impossible bitch?"
"Exactly."
They both laugh a little too loudly and for a little while too long.
[X]
Starlight, lamplight and too much alcohol.
It lifts the fog and reveals what it is warm and real and worth fighting for.
In these long nights, the world is theirs. No one else alive but the two of them together.
At the moment, they lie in a vast palace trophy room on the floor, surrounded by candles. It is Azula's favorite room in the summer palace, and after the evenings they have spent there, it has become Ty Lee's favorite room in the summer palace too.
Ty Lee turns over on her side and examines Azula for a brief moment before remarking, "Don't think I can't tell you're scheming."
"Now," purrs Azula prettily, "what on Earth would I even have to scheme about?"
Ty Lee groans. "You're beautiful and amazing and so powerful and strong and sexy and charming and scary in a good way but sometimes I want to smother you to death and throw your body into the ocean."
Azula just smirks and winks at her wife. Ty Lee cannot help but grin sweetly and silently giggle.
Ty Lee kisses Azula's neck and gushes, "I don't need you to scheme for me and think for me anymore. I just need you to love me."
That certainly makes Azula roll her eyes.
"Spirits, you've gone soft without the war," bemoans Azula, albeit unable to hide her slight blush.
"No, my sweet syrup cake, I've gone as hard as an earthbender in a room of naked statues."
Azula smirks and laughs under her breath.
[X]
In the morning, Ty Lee wakes in a soft but empty bed. She brushes her hand to where Azula previously lay and allowed the memories of unadulterated desire dance behind her eyes for a few moments before she snaps into reality and rises from the mattress to get ready for work.
Ty Lee begins to panic when she does not see Azula in her usual lurking areas. While Ty Lee may be preoccupied with fighting for her dream career, fighting for her dream girl always has been and always will be the most important thing in the world.
She breathes relief when she finds a note in Azula's meticulous handwriting on top of a pile of volcanic glass. It says she went to the beach to center herself before going to the firebending dojo for work.
She contemplates heading to the beach, because just as much as Azula needs Ty Lee to survive the demons within her, Ty Lee needs Azula to survive the demons around her.
But Ty Lee knows she needs to keep working as hard as possible for her dream. She and Azula both agreed to find their place in the world. Ty Lee eagerly agreed; Azula had felt the other options were worse.
So Ty Lee trudges to work, ready as every other day to show she deserves to be there.
Even if that means enduring her bitch boss.
[X]
When Ty Lee arrives at work, something feels wildly off in the areas around her. It is remarkably even stranger than Azula leaving a note. Ty Lee's wife has never once had a problem waking other people up, ever since childhood and beyond. The princess even seems to take delight in asserting her power to do so.
Ty Lee's boss walks over, her gait a little off, her eyes a little too focused.
Quickly, Ty Lee tries to make a mad dash to the gaggle of her wonderful friends waving at her, but her boss gently grabs her arm.
Gently. Not a trace of severity but certainly with trembling of her fingers.
"I have something to tell you. I have decided to forgo the auditions and choose my best acrobat to lead the big Fire Festival show. You."
"Uhhh…" Ty Lee takes a long, nervous breath through her lips that had parted in shock. "Thank you. I'm honored."
Ty Lee's boss sounds unmistakably nervous and tense as she feigns a sweet tone and says, "I think you will be perfect to star in the show. Are you tired? Thirsty? I can get you a massage and cup of tea if you need it. You're my star."
"I'd just like to start practice I guess."
Ty Lee smiles as brightly as she always does.
But she cannot help but have dark thoughts that certainly must be tainting her aura.
Azula.
[X]
The strange behavior of Ty Lee's boss and Azula's very clearly feigned innocence last for three entire days before Ty Lee screws her courage to the sticking post and decides she must face her fears and confront Princess Azula.
Ty Lee walks expediently into the palace and takes long, fast, confident strides to Azula's private office for political correspondence and volcanic glass art.
She slams open the door, narrowly avoids a knee-jerk lightning blast and demands breathlessly, "My love, this has to stop! What did you do?"
Azula finds herself taken aback for once;
Ty Lee is never so defiant with her wife. Not to mention Azula figured Ty Lee would be enjoying reaping the benefits of Azula's scheme by now, not be so viciously angry about it.
"What makes you think I've done something?"
"My boss has been super, super weird!"
"Weird how?" asks Azula in a tone that anyone else but Ty Lee would deem innocent.
"Please tell me what you did to her."
"I did nothing."
"I'm begging you to tell me! Please, Princess!" Ty Lee tiredly pleads. In response to Azula's glacial silence she suppresses a sigh and adds, "At least tell me on a scale of one to ten how, uh, evil whatever you did to my boss was."
Azula sets her hands on her hips. "A zero, because I did nothing."
"For the sake of our marriage, I will ask you one last time. What did you do, Azula?"
After a slow, dramatic sigh, Azula rises to her feet and crosses the room. She hesitates for a flicker of a second before whipping open the heavy scarlet curtain, revealing a cage and a beautiful bird.
"I took her sparrowkeet hostage."
"You kidnapped her pet?" exclaims Ty Lee incredulously.
"I did it for us. You're my wife, and this bitch is making you miserable. I won't stand for that."
"This is twisted. It's sick!"
"I personally find it incredibly sexy of me."
"We could be in so much trouble. Azula, I seriously put so much on the line to get a fresh start with you. If I let Zuko down…"
"Oh, the horror of disappointing ZuZu."
"I'm really serious. I promised to keep you out of trouble."
"What's the fun of life without a little trouble?"
"You could've taken your anger out in the fighting ring like you usually do."
"Not in this case. You're my sweet () and I'm not going to tolerate anyone disrespecting you. When they disrespect you, they disrespect me."
"Azula…"
"And fine! Fine! Watching you suffer for your stupid circus dreams and not being able to do anything to protect you makes me feel as helpless as a waterbender in a desert. Or Mai in a personality competition."
[X]
For the entire following day, Ty Lee, a woman who has never stopped prancing around and fidgeting since the day of her birth sits frozen in one spot, staring at the sparrowkeet Azula took hostage.
Azula yawns as she arrives home from the firebending dojo and looks her wife up and down.
"How long are you going to hold my act of kindness against me?"
"At least through the end of our prison sentence."
"Why don't you just relax and thank me for performing my duties as a wife."
"Dragging me into a hostage situation?"
"Defending you. Besides, it's not anywhere near a hostage situation."
"We need to give it back to her."
"Not without something from her in return."
"I thought it wasn't a hostage situation?"
"If anything, it is merely a blackmail situation."
Ty Lee sighs and crumples to the floor. Azula purses her lips and glares down at the ungrateful woman with an utter disdain that Ty Lee manages, for once, to completely ignore.
"We're giving the bird back."
Azula's lips contort into a snarl. She wants to wield her lightning and zap Ty Lee into next year. But after a moment's consideration, she decides that this was probably enough to scare Ty Lee's boss straight.
Maybe the hint of mercy will contain far more than a hint of menace.
After all, what's the worst that could happen?
Therefore, Azula begrudgingly agrees to take her wife to give back the sparrowkeet tomorrow.
[X]
In the early morning, before any rehearsals are to begin, Ty Lee and Azula sneak slyly through the Ember Island streets with a sparrowkeet snuggled cozily in a leather bag draped over Azula's shoulder.
Several soldiers stand waiting with weapons as Azula and Ty Lee arrive at the scene of the crime clutching a sparrowkeet now noisily eating its birdseed and rattling the bag around as it does so.
Both women curse quite creatively under their breath.
"Alright, Ty Lee, I'll flank and you draw their attention," orders Azula softly. "Then we both move in for the finale."
Ty Lee grimaces at how alight and eager her wife's beautiful eyes are.
"You know that I would do anything for you, and I've done a lot of really messed up stuff for you before with, like, a smile on my face, but I'm absolutely and totally not murdering officers of the law over a kidnapped bird."
"Fine," huffs Azula. "I suppose we must do it the hard way then."
Ty Lee does not like the sound of that either.
[X]
The moment the women hand over the bird to Ty Lee's bawling boss. The soldiers, who point their weapons tensely at the criminal couple, move forward with handcuffs.
Ty Lee offers up her wrists and one soldier, albeit with shaking hands, cuffs her.
Azula, of course, haughtily snorts at the pathetic men and sets her hands on her hips.
Ty Lee sidles to the right until she stands between an increasingly livid Azula and the biggest of the soldiers walking towards her with his blade in one hand and the handcuffs in the other.
"Please step aside, Princess," gruffly orders the soldier as he gently pushes Ty Lee to the side and approaches a steely Azula.
"You really shouldn't touch her!" squeaks Ty Lee.
"Miss, I know what I'm doing."
He does not.
Which is how he receives a vicious, flaming hot punch to the face that shatters his nose in an explosion of red hot blood.
[X]
"At least it isn't our first time behind bars."
"Ever the optimist," mocks Azula as she takes a sip of the expensive tea.
They may be in a cell waiting for word from the Fire Lord, but no one here has forgotten that they are princesses. It might as well be a guest room in the manor of a loyalist noble.
If you can forget the bars and shouts of criminals from nearby rooms.
Out of nowhere and nothing, Ty Lee starts laughing and laughing and laughing. Azula at first glares before unwillingly succumbing to the shaking of silent giggles and eventual wicked cackling.
"This is such a disaster!" ekes out Ty Lee through tears of shuddering laughter.
The giggles pass. Both women wipe away tears and take a few deep breath.
With a venom of distaste coating her words, Azula asks, "Aren't you an optimist?"
"It's kinda hard to find a positive in this gross prison cell with my meddling wife who landed me here."
"At least try."
"For once, nobody got killed."
"Do better than that."
"Well, I guess it was a bonding experience." Ty Lee softly sighs and looks away, "And, I mean, I haven't felt that alive in years."
Azula's lips twitch with an indestructible smile.
"I can't say that was my intention, but it was the most fun I've had in a long time, I suppose."
"Thanks," says Ty Lee in earnest. "I mean, I guess."
"You guess?"
"I said I wanted to handle my stuff alone for once and not rely on family or fame or whatever, but part of being married is that you can't just think about yourself anymore."
"If that is a veiled insult to me I refuse to hear it and I will not respond to it."
Ty Lee ignores the jab and continues. "I like that you're looking out for me, even if it's in your totally amoral, manipulative and hostile way."
Azula smirks and takes another sip of her tea.
"Anytime… my sweet syrup cake."
Ty Lee smiles and kisses her bride.
