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The day is bright, filled with laughter and friends and love, and it is for this reason that Ty Lee rises early every morning to have breakfast with the Kyoshi Warriors and enjoy time spent with her new friends and flirt with the other young people on Kyoshi Island. It is for this reason that Ty Lee continues to wake up at dawn when she returns to the Fire Nation to visit her friends and family, eating breakfast with those she’s missed and dragging them out to go shopping and occasionally trying to sit on royal meetings.
But it feels different at night. For her entire life, Ty Lee has slept surrounded by others: at home, with her sisters; in the circus, her fellow acrobats; while hunting the Avatar, next to Azula and Mai. Even on Kyoshi Island she had shared a room with another warrior.
So it’s uncomfortable to sleep alone in the guest room assigned to her when she returns to the Fire Nation palace. The silence is overbearing; the sound of her own breathing presses in on her, and when she is still she thinks she can hear the beating of her heart like a hammer.
Ty Lee spends two restless nights like this. On the third, when she can bear it no longer, she gets up, shuts her door behind her, and finds the room she’s looking for.
The guards standing outside recognize her and allow her to knock on the door with just the slightest hesitancy. For a moment Ty Lee feels silly— she’s nearly fifteen years old and she still can’t sleep by herself— and considers going back, but Mai has already opened the door and wordlessly lets her in, closing the door again.
“What is it?” Mai asks. Her voice is tired but not unkind.
Ty Lee shrugs and smiles apologetically. “I can’t sleep. Not alone.”
Mai nods. Ty Lee knows that her friend is not the most expressive of people, but her mere presence is enough. Mai motions to the large bed, which is large enough to easily fit the two of them, and Ty Lee lies on one side and Mai takes the other, facing away from her.
They lay in silence for a while. Ty Lee breaks it (she always does.) “Can we go see Azula tomorrow?” she whispers.
Beside her, she feels Mai tense. She doesn’t move, but Ty Lee knows she’s struck a nerve.
“Are you sure?” Mai says at last. “I mean, you just got here, and…”
Seeing Azula might ruin your visit, she doesn’t say, but they both hear the unspoken words, contaminating the air and threatening to choke them.
“I’m going,” says Ty Lee resolutely. “Will you come with me?”
Mai sighs. “Yes,” she agrees.
---
“Azula?” Ty Lee is hesitant. Mai is stoic as ever, a pillar of certainty to Ty Lee’s flitting feather. Their princess is in a straitjacket, completely bound. Her hair has been neatly combed back, Ty Lee notices. They can’t be treating her that bad here.
Treatment has not dulled her ferocity. She growls when she sees her former friends, and Ty Lee flinches despite herself.
“You traitors!” Azula hisses. “Traitors, both of you. You’re going to pay, you filthy renegades, walking out on your princess—”
“Azula,” says Mai calmly, “Ty Lee wanted to see you. You could at least say hello.” She doesn’t say anything to Ty Lee directly, but the acrobat senses her tired reluctance.
“As if she cares,” snarls Azula. “She didn’t care when she turned on me to help you because of that stupid brother of mine.” She spits at their feet in disgust, then turns to Ty Lee. “Are you enjoying yourself? Isn’t it nice, seeing your princess in a straitjacket in prison?” she demands. “You’ve turned the tables. The circus freak has come to visit the newest attraction in town— the princess imprisoned by her own people. Was it worth your time?”
“Please,” says Ty Lee. “Azula, I wanted to see how you’re doing. I just needed to—”
Azula lets loose a scream of frustration. “Get out of my sight!” she roars. Ty Lee takes a step back. She grabs Mai’s hand, unsure of what to do.
Mai sighs and walks away, and Ty Lee follows. She can’t help looking back at her princess, though, and when Azula sees her turn, she growls, “And don’t come back!”
---
Ty Lee will not give up so easily, though. Over the next two months she continues to visit Azula at least twice a week, and Azula continues to reject her attempts at reconciliation. Little by little, Ty Lee’s hope of reuniting with her princess fades.
On what will become her last visit, Ty Lee tries to touch Azula. An innocent touch, a hand on her shoulder. A gesture of gentleness and love. Azula recoils as if she’s been stabbed, and screams at her. Somehow, she summons enough power to breathe fire out of her mouth, scorching Ty Lee’s sleeve and burning her arm.
Guards appear within milliseconds, tying Azula down while she screeches incomprehensible obscenities at them until they gag her. One guard escorts a terrified Ty Lee out and tends to her wounds.
“Miss, I know you care about the princess and all,” she says gently as she bandages Ty Lee’s arm, “but I really think it’d be better for everyone if you didn’t come back here.”
Ty Lee nods, trembling. She blinks back tears. Azula attacked her. Azula, her friend, her princess. Azula, who loved her and was loved by her.
When the guard finishes, they both stand up. “I’ll take you back home,” the guard offers, and Ty Lee manages a small “Thank you,” and allows her to lead her back to the palace.
---
At the palace, Mai finds Ty Lee crouched by the pond, throwing food at the turtleducks.
“You missed dinner,” she notes.
“Wasn’t hungry,” Ty Lee replies, not looking up. She tosses another crumb at a turtleduckling, who eagerly dives for it.
Mai smooths her robes and gingerly sits down beside her friend. “I heard what happened,” she says.
Ty Lee is silent.
“You’ll have to get over her eventually, you know,” Mai says.
Ty Lee suddenly throws her arms around Mai and begins to sob. “She burned me, Mai,” she cries. “She hates me, and she won’t talk to me, and—”
Mai rubs her back soothingly, lets her cry until she’s run out of tears. When at last Ty Lee pulls away, she murmurs, “Thanks.”
Mai nods. “Anytime,” she says.
---
“Mai?” whispers Ty Lee. She lies on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Beside her, Mai is motionless except for her light breathing.
“Yes?”
Ty Lee shifts so that she’s facing Mai. “What happens after this?”
Mai’s silent for a moment. “You go back.”
“And then what?”
She looks into Mai’s serious dark eyes.
“I don’t know,” says Mai quietly.
Ty Lee considers this. She’s dedicated to the Kyoshi Warriors now, but there’s some piece of her that still belongs to Azula, to Mai. She’s never really had somewhere to call home, but Mai is the closest personification of it that she has, and she doesn’t think she can leave her behind forever.
“Will you come visit me?” she asks.
Mai pauses. Then she nods slowly, steadily. Ty Lee smiles and moves so that her body is against Mai’s. They’re young; they have their whole lives ahead of them to figure this out. It’s not much, but for now, it’s enough.
Ty Lee closes her eyes, feels Mai wrap an arm around her.
She’s finally home.