(An: Ah, crack!pairings. I had to write some after that Zutara. None of these are connected in any way except that they all feature Ty Lee. Most of these are set after "The Earth King", but the third has no specific time, and the fourth is during "Appa's Lost Days". AKA, the bit that we didn't see.)
Mai Ty: "Excitement"
Ty Lee and Mai were only too happy to let Azula handle the dealings with the Earth King. Fewer mouths meant fewer slip-ups. They were escorted to an antechamber and left alone.
Mai made a face as she sat down, wiping some of the ricepaint off her cheek. "Ugh, I hate this makeup."
Ty Lee flopped down on the divan beside her friend. "I think it's fun. It reminds me of the circus."
"You think everything's fun, Ty Lee," Mai drawled, kicking off a boot.
Ty Lee slid off the couch and stood on her hands. "Well, you think everything is boring." She shifted her weight so she could reach over and press a finger to Mai's nose.
The noble raised an eyebrow. "What was that?"
Ty Lee beamed angelically at her. "A nose beep." She flipped over onto her feet and this time sat on the opposite arm of the couch, so she was by Mai's feet.
Mai rolled her eyes and produced a book from somewhere. Ty Lee humphed and swung her legs. Ty Lee could do a lot of things with her body, Mai observed, but sitting still wasn't one of them. "I just don't get how you can not be excited about this."
Mai didn't look up. "What?"
"Hello!" said Ty Lee, throwing her arms in the air. "We broke into Ba Sing Se! Us! Not even the Dragon of the West could get in here, but we did! How can you find it boring?"
Mai yawned.
Ty Lee exhaled in disgust. "Doesn't anything excite you?"
Now Mai spared a glance, raising an eyebrow.
Ty Lee crossed her arms and tried to keep herself interested. She drummed her fingers on her elbow, hummed "Four Seasons", and did a few cartwheels. The room was too small for anything really interesting... well, any gymnastics anyway. She stood on her hands again and walked over to Mai. "You think Azula's going to be busy for a long time?"
Mai shrugged, shifting to a more comfortable position. "Depends on how gullible the King is. Why?"
Ty Lee sat on Mai's stomach and whisked the book out of her grip. She put her hands on Mai's shoulders and her face very close to the other girl's. "Getting a rise out of you could take a while, and I don't want Azula to catch us." She giggled at Mai's confused expression.
Mai seemed rather surprised when Ty Lee kissed her, but she responded well enough after she got her bearings back.
Azulee: "Fright"
Azula was scary. There was rarely any real emotion in those golden eyes, and she threatened death as casually as others requested the butter. When Azula talked, you listened.
Ty Lee had never feared her, though. Not really. Everyone thought it was because she was too thick, but Ty Lee was actually pretty smart; she was still alive, wasn't she? She knew she had plenty of reasons to, she knew Azula was probably as crazy as her father and definitely as deadly, and she knew that she would probably fall out of favor one day and the princess would finally kill her.
But it was hard to be afraid of someone who was afraid of the dark.
She hadn't feared anything as a child, but now that she was older, the princess of the Fire Nation, her father's pride and joy, ruthless, cold-blooded Azula, would wake up screaming if her candle went out. It wasn't something that happened often, and Mai and Ty Lee both slept like the dead.
Well, usually, anyway.
Ty Lee only found out by chance; she awoke as suddenly as though she'd been shaken with a desperate need to pee. When she was creeping back to her room, she heard a soft whimper from Azula's. She knew it was probably dangerous to disturb the princess, but she was curious. She wanted to know if Azula had finally found a man to her taste, or if she was just torturing a mouse again. She pushed open the door a crack. Azula was hugging her knees to her chest, staring at the wisp of smoke trailing from her candle. The wick was barely alight.
"Azula?"
The princess didn't look at her, didn't even appear to hear her. She hugged herself tighter, and Ty Lee realized that the whimpering had come from her.
Deciding that her destiny couldn't be to die today, Ty Lee crawled onto the bed beside her. "Azula?"
"I hate the dark." She sounded her age for once; she was only fourteen, after all. Not that Ty Lee was much older, but she didn't have as much built-up bad karma. "I never realize how awful I am until I see myself in the dark."
"Do you want me to relight your candle?"
Azula shook her head. When she didn't say anything, Ty Lee got up to leave, but Azula grabbed her arm. "Stay." Her voice was normal again, a princess commanding someone who wasn't quite her friend but probably the closest thing. Ty Lee sat, and Azula pulled her closer.
After that night, Ty Lee found it even harder to fear Azula; the event had humanized the princess, but that wasn't really it. It was just almost impossible to fear someone who kissed with the softness her heart lacked.
Ty Luki: "Competition"
Azula was famed for being ruthless, but few people knew that she rarely actually killed anyone. Torture, yes, maiming, you got it, but she was usually too busy (or too bored) to do the act itself.
So while the princess extracted some directions from one of the warriors, Mai and Ty Lee were left to clean up the rest. Most went easily, but there was one stubborn girl. She was the leader; all the others had died protecting her.
Mai had wandered off, leaving Ty Lee with a dagger and, "Finish her quickly."
They were too well-matched for an easy win, though. Ty Lee's style was aggressive, and the fan fighters were all about turning that against an opponent. But Ty Lee was also nimble and unhurt; the girl was burned, bleeding, and shattered from the deaths of her warriors.
Finally, though, Ty Lee tripped her. "You're pretty," she murmured in the other girl's ear. "Maybe I'll let you be."
The girl growled. "Sorry, I don't swing that way." She struggled, but Ty Lee just sat on her, spinning Mai's dagger on her finger. "Besides, I have a boyfriend."
Ty Lee giggled. "Maybe I should let you live. Azula would be angry with me, though... what's his name? Maybe I've met him." She said this with a nasty smirk learned from Azula; it suggested that the sweetness of her comment was because of a deliciously evil memory.
The girl stared at her in shock for a moment at the thought of whoever-he-was coming to harm and redoubled her efforts. This time, she managed to shove Ty Lee off, drawing her fan. "His name's Sokka, and dammit, I am not proving him right!" Anger and fatigue made her lunge sloppy.
Ty Lee smiled and kissed her on the cheek as she buried Mai's dagger in her chest. "Sorry. I just don't like competition." She twisted and stepped away before the girl fell. She wrinkled her nose, wiping Mai's dagger on the grass. "I hate stabbing people," she sighed. "So messy."
Ty Bee: "Taken"
In Mai's experience, it was never a good idea to let Ty Lee wander out of one's sight. She was too silly to be left alone. But they were in Ba Sing Se! You'd think the girl would have the sense to stay close and away from others. The more people who saw them, the worse their chances of remaining undetected. Azula and Mai didn't notice she was gone, though, until they were halfway through their tour of the middle ring.
"Find her," Azula hissed, her sharp fingernails leaving crescents in Mai's wrists.
Mai ducked away, muttering to herself as she massaged the marks away. "What could she be doing in this crappy town anyway?"
She wandered for a while until she heard a familiar giggle. Glaring at nothing in particular, she peered around a corner.
Ty Lee was sparring with a boy... or maybe it was a girl. It was hard to tell. There was no real malice in either of their movements; they were just playing. Ty Lee's opponent had a dagger which the gymnast was avoiding easily. "You're just like Mai. You don't like getting close. That's so boring!" Her opponent thrust, and Ty Lee flipped him over her hip, pinning him down.
Mai rolled her eyes and walked out beside her. "Come on, Ty Lee. Azula's looking for us."
Ty Lee pouted. "But I won!"
"What, do you want a ribbon?" drawled the boy.
"Nah," said Ty Lee, fidgeting. "Maybe you should take that chestplate off. I bet you're really cute."
The boy went red. "I'm a girl, dammit!"
Ty Lee looked rather surprised "I knew that." She shrugged. "How about a kiss?"
The girl looked utterly confused. "I'm taken," she stammered.
"So'm I." She looked over her shoulder to wink at Mai, who just exhaled in exasperation.
A boy with a quiver on his back and a basket under his arm walked over. He put the hand without the basket on his hip and gave the girl under Ty Lee a weird look.
Ty Lee glanced at him. "Wow, all the people in this place are cute!" She grinned at the boy before laying a light kiss on her opponent's lips.
"Augh!" cried the girl. In the air of a cat letting go of a mouse it's gotten bored of playing with, Ty Lee got up, allowing the girl to run into the nonplussed archer's arms. (1)
"I'm not even going to ask," muttered the boy, pulling his hat down over his eyes.
Ty Lee winked at him and slipped her arm through Mai's. She then led her off as if Mai had been the lost one.
Jin Lee: "Wine"
Ty Lee had a talent with people, common or noble; she was ditzy and had a short attention span, but she was loving and honest. She attracted people like herself, which was why she was currently sitting with several Earth Kingdom teenagers. Mai would have sized up their clothing and could probably have told you within a copper how much it was worth, and Azula would have either ignored them or toyed with them, but Ty Lee knew that wine ignored status and worth. Besides, she had been a common girl once.
So she sat and drank and laughed at their jokes and smiled until she thought her face would crack from it.
The one who had supplied the wine- Ty Lee was tempted to think her name was Jin, but could that really be it?- was the funniest, with a smile that that only got sweeter the more glasses Ty Lee had. They were all so drunk by the time someone suggested a game of spin the bottle, no one objected, even though their group was mostly girls. (2)
It went without event for the first few twirls. When a girl got another girl, a kiss on the cheek was usually the action of choice. That was, until it got to Jin. She spun the empty bottle, giggling at the noise it made on the cobbles. She laughed even louder when it stopped at Ty Lee. She cocked her head and sized up the gymnast. Her smile was shy, but her kiss was enthusiastic enough to make the boys whistle.
Ty Lee kissed back just as eagerly. It wasn't because she was drunk- well, ok, a little- but it was mostly because she knew how angry Azula would be if she ever found out. She could taste danger on the other girl's lips.
(...Damn, that was weird. I like this fic, though. Now can you see why it's humor/angst? Review!)
(1) I only did this pairing because the name I came up with amused the hell out of me. I like Longerbee and Mai Ty too much, though.
(2) Tried to think of some witty Avatar'd version of the game. Couldn't. Too lazy. They use "girlfriend". So there.