Warnings for a toxic relationship. Mild verbal/emotional + manipulation and so on as well as mental health issues and mild blood.

It is a nice night by most standards, a truely, genuinely beautiful night. Anyone would agree. Even she agrees. She has to when the facts are so objective. The temperature is just right it isn't smoldering and it certainly isn't cold. Azula always has been fond of the subtle rhythms created by palm fronds shaken by the wind. A gust that is subtle yet alluringly fragrant. She isn't well versed in flora so she can't name the precise scent, but it is floral and has a fruity tang. She thinks maybe pineapple and that the fruits may be in bloom at the moment. Everything is lush and green and the sand she lays in is soft. Albeit she isn't fond of sand; it is messy and always lodges itself in the smallest, most unsavory places on the body. Namely she hates when it burrows under her nails, both finger and toe. And it is damn near impossible to shake out of her hair.

She would rather not be laying in the sand.

But she has a nice view of the stars. They carefully arrange themselves into the most aesthetically pleasing alignment that they possibly can. They twinkle around a sliver of a moon. Just as she is no botanist, Azula is also not an astronomer; she can't spot the constellations and she isn't sure of which phase of the moon she is seeing.

The water also has its own charm. It's steady rush and churning is a nice addition to the rustling fronds and the occasional iguana-parrot call. The toad-squirrels are also very lively tonight. Everything makes noise.

Everything but her.

.oOo.

She had been home only for perhaps two months. Three times the charm, or so they say; she was coming out of her fourth relapse and was feeling no better about her psyche and overall health and wellbeing.

TyLee was waiting for her at the turtle-duck always waited for her there. Well, always was a bit of a stretch. Sometimes she thought that TyLee couldn't even stand to look at her, much less sit down and converse with her for a half an hour or better.

But that day TyLee was waiting for her. Waiting and smiling as gleefully as ever.

That was because she didn't know…

Granted, Azula hadn't known either.

She sat herself at a good distance from the pond itself but near enough for TyLee to reach out and touch her.

"Good morning, Azula! How are you feeling today!?"

And that was it really. Perhaps she was in a mood, she must have been, because that was all it had taken. She was tired of that question over and over again. How patronizing it was to always have people inquiring about her moods as if they had any right to know. She didn't need to constantly report back to them about her emotional state.

"I'm fine." She snapped.

TyLee's smile faded into a dull look of distress. She thought that the woman might have even flinched. This too, sent her reeling. That TyLee still didn't trust her enough to not wince every time she expressed displeasure. "Stop looking at me like that."

"L-like what?" TyLee asked.

"That!" Another flinch told her that she had raised her voice. She didn't think that she had raised it that much. "Like you're still afraid of me."

"I am still afraid of you." TyLee confessed abruptly before bringing her hands to cover her mouth.

Azula looked over the little bundle of flowers that TyLee had laid down next to a platter of strawberry cheesecake and the petals that she had sprinkled around the dainty teacups. It was arranged so flatteringly and her favorite flavor of mochi sat neatly at the center of the picnic blanket.

It wasn't a gesture of love, Azula concluded, but one of fear. TyLee had gone to great lengths because she was afraid of what the princess would do if she didn't.

Azula surmised that all of this was foolishness, that it was all a lie. That she had wasted her time thinking that there could ever be trust and love without fear. She swallowed once before the pangs of regret and sadness gave way to anger and frustration. It was more self directed but that didn't stop TyLee from wincing again.

Azula wished that she wouldn't have. Maybe if TyLee hadn't winced...hadn't made her feel like one, she wouldn't have become a monster.

Again.

She sneered, her eyes flashing with a fury that even she was plainly aware was unwarranted. "Oh, I haven't given you a reason to be afraid yet, but I can."

"You already have."

"So that's what this is then? You only put this," she gestures to the food, "together because you're afraid of what I would have done if you..."

"I put it together because it makes you happy. And you've been so upset lately..."

She gave a bitter laugh. "Don't lie to me, TyLee. You're a dreadful liar. I know what you think of me..."

"Azula..."

She lifts her hand up. "Just clean all of this up, I hate strawberries anyways." She lies. "Just like I've always hated your ditzy, happy-go-lucky facade."

.oOo.

But she never hated any of it. Truly, it was and is what keeps her hanging on. From entirely losing herself again. She supposes that it doesn't matter anymore. It is too late to take it back. It is too late to do anything anymore.

To do anything but lay there and wish her struggles away.

Blood trickles from the side of her mouth.

She should have done better.

She should be better.

She promised TyLee that she would, but she had lied again. She didn't mean it, but it has been done. It can't be salvaged. She can't be salvaged. She is well aware that she has been running through chance after chance and she doesn't think that she has many left, if any at all.

She wishes that she were a better person.

She wishes that she knew how to love a person correctly...

She has a lot of wishes.

There is a lot of blood. The trickle is more like a steady floor. It fills her mouth. Swallow or spit, more comes up to replace it. She touches a trembling hand to the side of her mouth. It is so thickly slick.

But the night is so pretty, so glorious, so lushly fragrant and the night noise is so soothing. She thinks that it may be trying to hum her to sleep. She thinks that when she goes to sleep that she will wake amid those diamond-dust clouds or that she won't wake at all.

She shouldn't but she does.

She closes her eyes.

"Just clean all of this up, I hate strawberries anyways. Just like I've always hated your ditzy, happy-go-lucky facade."

She wishes that it weren't the last thing she had said.