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Ty Lee never quite got used to the echoing silence of the royal palace.
It was an unspoken rule of etiquette that the palace’s halls are quiet until any member of the family arrives- then, the halls would be filled with the sound of reverence and servants falling to their knees as they bow to the divine family of rulers. Once they leave, it is back to feather-light footsteps and whispered conversations. It was believed the Fire Lord had eyes and ears on every wall; nobody wanted to test that.
(When Ozai became Fire Lord, Zuko picked up the habit of walking as quietly as a servant. Azula always stomped.)
Ty Lee had nothing to learn, though, she’s always walked as if her feet never even touches the floor at all. Azula admired it as much as Azula can admire anything, and that was enough for Ty Lee. She had something to make her stand out from the matched set: the beautiful Fire Princess liked her.
The feeling Azula’s friendship gave her used to make her aura so pink it began to shine. Now, thinking of it drained the color as if someone had unplugged it.
“Air feeds fire,” The beautiful Princess had once quietly sneered into her ear, “as long as yours only feeds mine, I’ll keep it a secret.”
Ty Lee left for the circus a few months later. Even now, she still doesn’t know what Azula saw Ty Lee do that prompted her say that. The part that still fears her, fears Ozai, doesn’t want to know.
She remembers too vividly when she became scared of the palace, when the air there became stifling and her footsteps became truly soundless. It wasn’t Azula’s stabbing remarks or her cold blue flame, not Ozai’s silent approval of her with his constant prowling around the courtyard, not Mai’s shivering when he was there, not Zuko quietly staring at something very far away. She wasn’t scared of things she didn’t understand.
No, Ty Lee became scared of the palace when she first met Fire Lord Azulon, the namesake of her beautiful princess. She dropped on her knees and pressed her forehead on the ground, less out of reverence, more out of fear of seeing the eyes of the most terrifying aura she’s ever been near.
She’s seen flickers of that color in Azula’s whenever Ursa scolded her (and when Ty Lee betrayed her). It was the same aura Ozai’s became when he looked at Zuko (another thing she wants to stay ignorant about). It swum around in Zuko’s aura when he returned from his banishment (but it’s gone now). It was so choked and deprived of air that Ty Lee couldn’t hear what words the divine elderly voice had said to the small crowd of children and servants. She doesn’t want to know those words.
At least she had her friends. Her friends made the palace a little less scary.
Ty Lee loves Mai, she loves the pout that never quite goes away and liked to giggle at the uncharacteristic blush whenever Zuko walked past alongside his pensive mother. Azula said, a very long time ago, that Mai and Zuko souls were clearly bonded. Made for each other, just like Ty Lee and Azula were. It made sense to Ty Lee, Azula is usually right about the things she doesn’t understand.
Mai loves Zuko, but she is still mad at him. They aren’t talking to each other anymore and not even they know why. It makes Ty Lee sad, even sadder to remember that their relationship probably wouldn’t be so strained if she hadn’t helped Azula play matchmaker. Ty Lee loves Mai; she just wanted to make her friend happy.
“I don’t blame you, Ty Lee.” Mai had sighed when Ty Lee had expressed that to her friend. “It’s not like we had a choice.”
Ty Lee loves Zuko, too, she just doesn’t understand him as well as she wishes she did. His face scares her. Written on his face was a glimpse into a future where Ty Lee hadn’t kept her air to herself and the beautiful princess; except she doubts she’d live to wear a scar. His aura is so plagued now that she doesn’t think she’d want to.
At first, Ty Lee thought the Zuko she used to know had become nothing more than char, but now she knows he wasn’t gone, just hiding. He’s still as awkward as he was when she first met him.
Zuko’s always been a little odd, and Ty Lee always found it endearing. So did Mai. Azula did too, for all the wrong reasons. Ty Lee had laughed along with her insults because her air feeds Azula’s fire.
The Avatar was something else Ty Lee didn’t understand. He was air, but it wasn’t controlled by fear, and his air fed everyone and everything around him. It fed his own fire. His air was controlled by something deep and powerful and so distinctly old that standing next to him always shook her very core, because he makes her see just how consumed she is by smoke.
Then again, perhaps not smoke, but Ty Lee knows she isn’t imagining the raining ash in his aura, just like what she sees in those water tribe siblings. It swirls around like dust under a ray of sun, where you don’t notice how chokingly dusty the room is until you shine light on it, not knowing you’ve been inhaling it the entire time.
How does he handle being a firebender? How does he handle being around Zuko? It’s impossible to not see similarities of him and Zuko, her and Azula. They blew life into both of them, whether for good or ill. But Aang didn’t just change Zuko’s aura, he changed Zuko, he brought the Zuko she knew from the ashes.
Ty Lee wonders if she could do that for Azula, as she sits quietly outside her cell, legs stretched along the floor and back against the wall.
She wonders if she even should.
A guard eventually learns her name as she comes and sits outside a beautiful princess’s heavily guarded cell, because soulmates always find each other. The smoke begins to lift and she understands things better.
One day, the cell door opens.