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Azula’s not as quiet as she thinks.
Maybe that’s not fair.
She’s quiet, when she wants to be. Light of foot, patient when it counts, smart and deliberate. She’s been sneaking around since she was just small, creeping around the palace, small and hidden, turning stray conversations into weapons and armor. She's always been good at it.
But she learned how to be very good from Ty Lee.
Because since she was small, Ty Lee had learned to attune herself to Azula. It’s what’s kept her safe, this close to the princess. To know where Azula is, what she wants, how to give it to her or persuade her out of it with as much deftness as possible. Because she knew that despite what Azula wanted so desperately, she was still human, and she still needed it. Happiness. Attention. To keep Azula happy, because it made things easier. And because it was difficult to do and Ty Lee liked being good at it.
So, Ty Lee can sense Azula’s approach, but she doesn’t react. She stays still, staring down at the ornate carved staff in her hands, balanced in her palms, testing its weight and she jumps and gasps like she’s truly startled when Azula clamps one hand over her shoulder, and another around her wrist.
“Princess!” Ty Lee yelps, letting herself be spun on her heel, careful not to drop the staff to the ground. “I was just—”
“Snooping, Ty Lee?” Azula asks, in elegant, lilting tones. Her eyes are bright, the same kind of smug glee that radiates out of her at any small victory — besting Mai at sparring, when Zuko flushes in helpless rage at her jokes, when she succeeds in a difficult firebending maneuver. People often take Azula’s gloating for malice and, well, sure it is sometimes — but it’s not always that. Sometimes, more often than people would think, it’s more like… preening. Like now.
Azula’s gaze is sharp on Ty Lee’s face, awaiting her response. Expectant.
“I wouldn’t say snooping,” Ty Lee tossed out a lopsided grin, feeling a burst of heat in her chest when Azula’s eyes softened fractionally, her grip on Ty Lee’s shoulder gentling. “More like… doing recon!”
“In my family home?” Azula presses, but she sounds amused now.
“An agent of the line of future Fire Lord must always stay vigilant!” Ty Lee tempers the flattery with a faux-serious voice. She would throw in a mock salute, if her hands were free. “Threats to the Fire Nation could lie anywhere!”
“They’d have to be pretty stupid to be lying in the armory of our country estate,” Azula rolls her eyes, but Ty Lee can tell from her tone that there’s no reprimand coming. Azula’s grip on her wrist shifts, until the staff is being plucked from Ty Lee’s open palms.
Azula steps back and twirls the staff in the palm of her hands. It’s fast enough and confident enough that Ty Lee almost doesn’t catch the slight wobble in the grip that indicates Azula’s lack of total control. She’s always struggled a little, when it’s come to weapons training. Fire Benders at her level rarely employ traditional weapons — benders like their hands free. Azula has insisted on learning, has trained extensively alongside Ty Lee and Mai both in their days at the Academy and since their reunion in the Earth Kingdom, but she’s not a natural. Still. Ty Lee thinks it’s noble that she tries.
Suddenly, the end of the staff is careening towards Ty Lee’s cheek. She barely has time to dodge, twisting and rolling backwards, springing to her feet again and leaping away from another blow. It becomes a dance, of a sort. The staff gives Azula reach, which is an advantage in the mid-sized room they’re sparring in, but her lack of skill allows Ty Lee to maintain the natural edge her agility provides her.
When Azula swings, Ty Lee flows around her. When she strikes low, Ty Lee leaps upwards. When she goes high, Ty Lee rolls and slides along the mat. Once she aims a jab towards Ty Lee’s midsection that’s slow and clumsy and Ty Lee grabs the staff in the middle and pulls hard. It catches Azula off guard, spoils her momentum, and sends her stumbling towards Ty Lee. Releasing her grip on the staff, Ty Lee glides forward, smacking her lips in a teasing almost-kiss right beside Azula’s ear.
She pays for it, of course. In the next instant, Azula has recovered, and swung the staff back low and fast enough to trip Ty Lee, sending shooting pain up through the bones of her legs. She sprawls comically on the floor, breath hitching when Azula steps over her, jabs the bottom of the staff into the mat next to Ty Lee’s ear with a terrifying thunk.
“You got cocky,” Azula frowns. She’s flushed, from the heat in the room, from the exertion of the exercise, but also, Ty Lee thinks, from the kiss that wasn’t a kiss. From the idea of a kiss.
Ty Lee shrugs, not denying it. She smiles up at Azula and carefully eases herself up onto her elbows. “It was fun! Besides, it’s not like I was actually going to win against you!”
Azula huffs, but Ty Lee can tell she’s pleased. She steps backwards and spins the staff in her hands again, going through some training forms while Ty Lee stretches her leg out and tries to massage the ache out of it.
“This is a family heirloom, you know,” Azula comments, sweeping the staff out in front of her. She leans forward, one foot braced on the mat, thigh perpendicular to the ground, her other leg stretched out behind her, extended in a lunge. Her robes are light, designed for lounging in the summer, and Ty Lee watches the way they shift against her in the light breeze coming through the open door.
“It’s beautiful,” Ty Lee says. Like you, she almost adds, but catches herself. It’s not like she wouldn’t mean it — the polished, ornately carved wood, no doubt crafted of the finest wood the Fire Nation had to offer; Azula’s body, honed and muscled, singing with the blood of Fire Lords, the fire of dragons. Weapons, both. But beautiful, too. But she doesn’t know how Azula would react if she said it here, like this. Ty Lee’s not even sure how she would want Azula to react.
Azula, oblivious to Ty Lee’s turmoil, like usual, doesn’t even glance back. “I know.”
Azula spins the staff in her palms again and again and again, a continuous movement, a blur of dark wood.
“It predates Azulon, you know,” Azula says, absently. She snaps her wrist out, ending the dizzying flurry of the staff abruptly. “Sozin’s uncle carved it himself. Xianzu.”
Oh no. Ty Lee’s never had a head for Fire Nation history — it’s not like she hasn’t tried to learn. There was what they were taught at the Academy, which she needed to know to pass classes, but most of that knowledge has ebbed away in the years since. What practical use was there in knowing which stuffy old nobles had signed what accords for trading and land rights and military action? It would have been smart to learn, of course — it was exactly the kind of thing Azula took seriously. It was her family, after all, at the center of it all. The legacy she wanted to claim. But, for the life of her, Ty Lee had never been able to bring herself to care about any of it.
“Xianzu,” Ty Lee repeats, humming thoughtfully. “Sorry, ‘Zula. I don’t remember much about him.”
“You wouldn’t,” Azula murmured, glancing down at Ty Lee from the corner of her eye. “Stand up.”
Ty Lee bites back a wince, not keen on another round of sparring. Still, she forces herself to her feet, bouncing lightly on her heels, looking expectantly at Azula.
“Here,” Azula passes the staff to her. “How does it feel?”
Carefully, watching Azula as closely and nonchalantly as she can, she grips the staff in the center, spinning it like Azula had earlier. It’s well balanced, a little longer than she would have chosen, but light enough to where she can still wield it easily.
“It’s nice,” Ty Lee says.
“Xianzu had it made as a gift,” Azula says. “He had a… favored companion. Tan, some minor noble from the south. They were close at school, fought alongside one another during the island rebellions. Before Sozin’s reign, such things were… tolerated, to some degree. If the men conducted themselves discreetly. This estate is where they retired together, once Sozin’s father ascended the throne and wanted Xianzu distanced from the Capital.”
“Oh,” Ty Lee says, warmth flooding her cheeks and neck. Azula was standing stock still, no longer looking at Ty Lee, arms braced behind her back. For the second time in a day, Ty Lee’s not sure what to say. “He was… banished?”
“Not formally,” Azula says with a shrug, finally glancing back at Ty Lee, face placid like she was discussing the weather. “He and his… Tan, retained their titles. They had wealth and land. Privacy. They were… withdrawn from court. For their own good, you see. A rather lax approach, by today’s standards, but times were different.”
“I guess that’s… kind of romantic,” Ty Lee says carefully, watching Azula’s face for a reaction.
“What is?”
“Giving up your place at court for love. It’s like a legend or something.”
“Or something,” Azula mutters, clearing her throat. “Tan was a non-bender, you see. A skilled swordsman in his youth, but he had a knee injury from the war. It made it difficult to walk. So Xianzu called for a ranger to bring him to the finest tree in the province, then he called a woodsman to have it felled, then a master carver to craft a walking stick for Tan.”
Ty Lee frowns skeptically at the beautifully carved staff. It was far too tall to serve as a walking stick, too improperly weighted. “It doesn’t look like a walking stick.”
“Because it’s not. Stop interrupting,” Azula snaps. “Xianzu presented Tan his gift, the carved walking stick, expecting for his lover to be pleased. But Tan was disappointed.”
“Why?” Ty Lee asks, before she can stop herself.
Azula scowls at her, but continues. “Because he was a soldier. Because the injury pained him, but the loss of pride pained him more.”
“So Xianzu carved him a staff instead.”
Azula nods. “No doubt, Tan would have preferred a sword.”
“Xianzu would have preferred he accept the walking stick.”
“So, no one was pleased by the arrangement,” Azula says.
“I’m not sure that’s the lesson here, Azula.”
“There is no lesson,” Azula snaps. “There’s just this. An old tool, gathering dust in a room no one visits. It’s a waste.”
Ty Lee sets the tip of the staff down on the floors and runs her thumb up and down the carved wood. She thinks of two men in love decades ago — the things they needed and the things they wanted, and what they gave up and what they couldn’t. “It’s beautiful,” she repeats.
“It’s junk,” Azula insists. “Last time we were here, Father almost had it thrown out. I think m— I think someone must have hid it, to stop him.”
“Oh.”
“Keep it,” Azula says, suddenly.
“What?” Ty Lee asks, but Azula is already striding towards the door.
“If you like it that much then keep it,” Azula tosses it over her shoulder like it’s nothing, like an afterthought, like Ty Lee’s heart isn’t pounding in her chest to hear those words. Keep it. “Father, Zuko and I are all benders, so it’s useless to us anyway. Just get it out of here.”
“Wait,” Ty Lee rushes after her, risking a hand on Azula’s arm to stop her. “Thank you, Azula.”
Impulsively, one hand clenched around the staff, Ty Lee darts in again, like she had when they were sparring. This time she doesn’t aim high and far, but lets her kiss fall on the swell of Azula’s aristocratic cheek. Lightly — the barest brush of her lips, but still. Still.
“Princess,” Azula says, jerking back.
“What?” Ty Lee asks, lips tingling. “Oh.”
Azula watches her.
“Thank you, Princess,” Ty Lee amends.
Azula nods and marches off.
Ty Lee leans in the doorway, palm sweating against the wooden staff, and watches her go.