Daycare
Azula enjoys she and Ty Lee's wicked games.
At first, they torment Ty Lee in as many inventive ways as Azula can muster. And the girl obeys. Ty Lee does anything Azula says to an extent that Azula had never experienced before. While other annoying attempts at friends could not even tolerate a command or a little scratch mark, Ty Lee seems glad to... do anything.
Ty Lee really likes Azula, as mean as the princess can be. She really likes Azula's mom, which makes the princess kind of mean to her. It is on one cold night that Ty Lee sees the true extent towards which Azula hates her mother.
The stars out, very bright and pouring through Azula's freshly cleaned window. That, added to the blue moon, makes it feel as if it is bright as daylight inside. Ty Lee tries to sleep, because Azula is, but she has the desire to get up and run around. She does pretty often, but she stays at Azula's side to watch her and be her friend and everything she enjoys to do not because she is supposed to do.
Princess Ursa attempts to come in to tuck in her daughter. Azula instantly turns away and Ty Lee feels uncomfortable. She is lying in bed with Azula, because they have started to share by now despite Azula making her sleep on the floor for a long while.
"Are you two doing okay?" Ursa asks very softly and Azula says nothing, of course.
Ty Lee does not know why. She really doesn't.
"We're..." Ty Lee closes her mouth quickly. She remembers what she is supposed to do and that she is a slave and that is that.
Ursa hands Ty Lee something, and Ty Lee does not say that she might as well be handing her a shrapnel mine. It is a cute little stuffed animal and Ty Lee smiles. It looks just like one of Azula's kitties, the two who have been growing up so cute and clever.
"Thank you," Ty Lee whispers, because she thinks that Ursa and Ozai own her too, even if Azula is the one she spends her entire day with.
Ty Lee shoves it under her pillow the minute Ursa attempts to tuck in her daughter and then leaves, defeated quickly.
"You can keep that thing."
"You're not gonna burn it?" Ty Lee's eyes flash wide, glittering from the moonlight pouring in from the window.
"No," Azula murmurs as she turns to face Ty Lee. "I don't care. She just likes you because you take care of me and she doesn't have to. Just set me in front of another kid and I'm out of the way for the day."
Ty Lee opens her lips, wanting to voice her confusion but not knowing how.
"I don't..." Ty Lee swallows. "You're right."
Azula cocks an eyebrow. "That's what you have to say. You have to do everything I want so that my parents don't have to deal with me for more than two seconds. You don't have to be so scared of them and what they'll do if you're not a good friend. I don't want someone to be a friend to me and do all I say because you're scared of my parents."
It is because Ty Lee is a slave, but Azula cannot know that. On top of that, Ty Lee is uncertain why Azula just sounds bitter and jaded instead of sad about her parents.
Ty Lee wants to talk about her parents could not afford her, or how she had problems with them because they sold her off to make sure she was taken care of. They couldn't pay for school or adoption or daycare or anything, and so she got to be a slave.
But Ty Lee likes it, because she has a best friend.
Ty Lee never thought she would have a best friend before.
Cherries
Azula is nine and she does not know what to pop a cherry is, but she does know that it made Zuko angry at father, which is... not uncommon in this house. They of course are viciously at each other's throats over something Ozai was demanding and Zuko was refusing and Azula could not follow it. She observes, with distaste, that they seem to have forgotten she is even there.
She looks up at her father to ask, saying, "What does it mean to pop a - " and Ty Lee looks like she is going to have a heart attack.
Ty Lee grabs Azula by the hand, touching her without permission for the first time. Zuko and Ozai are now possibly on the verge of blows, and mother is nowhere in sight to save him. Azula wants to watch, but Ty Lee tugs on her, and Azula follows.
"What?" Azula snaps and Ty Lee looks very nervous. "What?"
Ty Lee takes a deep breath and tries to explain. "It's like..." Ty Lee blushes cherry red. "It's like..."
It's like the fact that Zuko and Ozai's conversation was about a slave girl, and Ty Lee is one of those, and she doesn't know how she is supposed to express that type of thing to Azula. Ty Lee cannot remember when she learned it, but it must have been a long time ago, because she clearly did not learn it from Azula, who is huffy and slightly smoking.
"It's like... a sex thing?" Ty Lee weakly offers in her small voice.
"Elaborate." Azula crosses her arms.
