Azula knew she should be excited about this wedding. She was human, she had dreamt of passion before, of marriage, of those sorts of things she wound up keeping quiet about because she had a reputation as a cruel warlord and conqueror and not a fourteen year old girl.

But now she was a girl well into her twenties, and the idea of marriage was beginning to scare her more than anything she had faced in battle. She felt her heart race every time the wedding was mentioned. She focused intently on breaking in her shoes when she, by all means, had bigger things to be worried about.

"How are the shoes going?" Ty Lee asked warmly, surprising Azula. Ty Lee was glistening with sweat from how involved she was in the preparations, and Azula felt a momentary twinge of guilt about avoiding the preparations at all costs.

"I'm... breaking them in," Azula offered coolly, unsure what else to say. She simply hoped that, as usual, no one would protest her decisions, and she would be allowed to do as she pleased.

"You've been breaking them in for two days," Ty Lee murmured, her lips flickering with a smile. Azula rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to maintain a position of power and yet still wear these deplorable heels.

"They are yet to be broken," Azula said with a small, defeated sigh, before deciding to add a twist of humor. "But I break all of my enemies eventually. Shoes, you will not resist the wrath of conqueror Azula, even if I rip out your precious laces one at a time."

Ty Lee giggled, shaking her head slowly at her soon-to-be-wife.

"Remind my shoes never to get on your bad side," Ty Lee said with another giggle, her shoulders shaking then. Azula sighed and leaned against the warm wallpaper in the palace. "I can tell something is bothering you. Don't try to hide it from me."

"You should be a therapist. It's somewhat hard to resist... I don't even want to spit blood into your face," Azula said, shrugging. But her cavalier attitude was getting her nowhere, and she hated the mess that Ty Lee's presence transformed her into. She would like to say it was just the dazzling distraction of the acrobat's tits, but it was more than that.

And because of the more than that they were getting married.

"You have cold feet," Ty Lee declared and Azula knew she could not fight.

"Colder than the South Pole," Azula whispered, glancing around to make sure her moment of weakness was not overheard.

"Well..." Ty Lee's eyes glittered with that devious gleam Azula had come to love. "I can think of something that could warm you up."

"Hmm?"

And the wedding planners, servants and Zuko and Mai did not see them for the remainder of the day.