Azula stood at the altar, somewhat baffled. She did not exactly know what to make of what was happening to her, and her head was fuzzy and sore. The crowd was endless in the archaic yet pristine Agni Temple used for such royal affairs for thousands of years.
She was unsure what to make of all of this; certainties had quickly disappeared. Her shoes were well broken in, and that was the mundane thought she was focused on. Around her, people were gathered, and it was not broken into sides as Fire Nation weddings tended to be, seeing as two hundred out of the two hundred something people attending the wedding were there for Ty Lee.
When Azula was a little girl, her mother told her that she would marry someone she never met. She told her that one day she was just told she was marrying Ozai and she would never see her family again ─ of course, it would be the other way around for the person Azula wed, but that small detail did not matter at the time.
Azula brushed it off. But she cried that night about it, like some kind of wimpy schoolgirl instead of a girl who was already beginning to transcend the impossible.
Oh, Agni, it was starting... this was problematic.
It heart was beating far out of control, which simply was not okay. She felt as if it was one thing to show vulnerability to Ty Lee, or even to her brother, but to have her cheeks so heated in front of all of these people, who were just hoping she would cry or break down.
Everyone looked at her, Ty Lee, of course, and Azula was immensely grateful for it. But then eyes were on both of them, and suddenly, Azula did not feel that weak. This was something she was claiming as hers and the entire world could witness it.
Another step, and she was face to face with the person who had hurt her and healed her and everything in between. It was kind of difficult to tell when it started, whether it was with a bowl of cherries or a dance lesson in Ba Sing Se, or, perhaps just with the first shared glance when Ty Lee was dropped off by her parents and told to be Azula and Mai's playmate whether she liked it or not.
Ty Lee had to fight the urge to kiss Azula, seeing as it would be quite out of tradition. But Azula touched her lips to her with a small smirk; Azula made tradition, she was princess.
And Ty Lee had simply died waiting for that one kiss. Every day, waiting.
It was a day of promises that Azula fully intended to keep, and that Ty Lee was already keeping. Forever, or something like that. Forever was difficult to quantify, even for Azula, who had often felt like her life would drag on forever. She felt the pain in her bones for a moment as she looked at her, and she saw her briefly sideways, her head aching from slamming against the platform of the Boiling Rock.
But that would not take this away. It would not and Azula would not allow it to.
Oh Agni she was some kind of sniveling little in love wimp at this point.
Another kiss, this one not so stolen.