AN: I bring you my first fanfic, the tale of a dark, sordid affair in a different world, about Azula and Ty Lee.

Ambrosia

"I feel that much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are this yet allow themselves to be treated as that."
Harold and Maude

Ty Lee had a piercing headache. That was exactly how she remembered the day when she was exposed for her affair. Being branded as a whore was relatively unpleasant, but more unpleasant was the fact that she now had to take care of herself. And despite having more responsibility than most girls her age by being one in a large family, she had no idea how to begin.

She had exactly zero money. Zero. After making lists of the richest Fire Nation teens, she was now without a single copper piece. The married man she destroyed paid for the apartment. She thought he took pity on her. He probably did; she looked innocent, but... there was always a darker side.

Innocence was her specialty. She radiated it, although it was simply not her. Never in her life had she felt like her. Like herself. Not once. Always, she was looking for some new calling and some new way to belong. Rarely, did it ever happen.

It was in the fog of her headache that she realized she needed a job. It was going to be beyond difficult, seeing as her only skill was honed for either the military or a massage parlor, and Ty Lee could not see herself in either. There had to be something. The Fire Nation was the most powerful force in the world. Unemployment was at an all time low. Something existed that she could sweet talk her way into.

At least until she found a rich man who was not already married and snagged him. That would be her ticket to an easy life. She sighed, glanced at the completely boring and bland apartment she needed to decorate but did not have the means to furnish, and walked out to go search for a job.

There had to be a tea shop or something. She was pretty enough to be a waitress. She was pretty enough to be anything she wanted to be.

Ty Lee walked out onto the beautiful city streets. It was dim and gorgeous tonight, even if the stars were blocked out by all of the smog. She could smell both the ocean and the oil in the streetlamps and even some food being cooked somewhere nearby.

It was a world of opportunities, and there was no way she couldn't find one that she would adapt to perfectly. Impossible.

She set out to find work.

Somehow.

Meanwhile, Mai stared at her daughter, trying to make sense of her. She was bright and cute and clever, but she was absolutely baffling to one of her two mothers. Both of them, actually, Mai doubts Azula even knows Zurin's birthday... and Azula gave birth to her.

"She needs a new nanny," was what Mai walked in to today. She intended to just make brief contact with her daughter so she did not grow up to hate Mai the way she and Azula resent their mothers. But she wound up realizing she needed to find another employee.

"I don't understand why we can't just go enslave some Earth Kingdom..." Mai trailed off. She did not necessarily need to request the acquiring of slaves. It was probably an inappropriate comment when easily one of the servants looking at her could make it genuinely happen.

Mai was privileged in her youth. Always privileged. But she never had the raw power that she received when she married Azula. Even as a fiancée Mai was impressed by how much opened up to her. It was a rush that lasted very briefly, before Mai realized absolute power was incredibly boring and she would rather just go on with her life without starting another war.

It simply was on the table to start another war. If she wanted to.

Zurin looked at Mai with a particularly smug fervor. She seemed as if she knew exactly what a terror she was, and she was proud of it. Of course, she was four years old and presumably could not be that evil yet. Even if her mother was Azula. Who was exactly that evil. Azula the War Hero who made her daddy so proud with her wickedness, who would chew people up and spit them out just for the taste. And Mai, Mai married her because she knew that if suicide mission after suicide mission did not kill Zuko off, Ozai just would do it himself.

"So what happened to her nanny?" Mai asked, studying Zurin closely. The servants gave her no response so she cocked an eyebrow at her daughter. "What did you do?"

"Nothing." Zurin crossed her arms, chin sticking out slightly. Mai sighed. She loved her child, truly, but Zurin liked to be difficult.

"I'm going to figure out what you did, Zu," Mai stated coldly and Zurin shrugged. Ugh. She was Azula.

And so Mai decided to find out exactly what she was in need of finding a new nanny for her daughter. Presumably from someone less terrified of her response than servants.

Ty Lee was twelve when she wore lipstick for the first time. It was a coral shade that was difficult to come by in a world dominated by cheap red hues of all levels of toxicity. She had her hair down and it made her slender and young body almost entirely disappear.

She had stolen it, of course. There was no way her parents would let their promising young daughter walk around with make-up on. She was far too young. But she put on the lipstick. Too much of it. Enough that her mouth tasted vaguely of chalk.

"Why are you putting that on?" mother had asked and Ty Lee jumped nearly ten feet.

"Because I'm not as pretty as the other girls," Ty Lee admitted easily. Secrets and facades were never her trade. She dealt in fake smiles and batting of eyelashes.

Her mother frowned faintly. "What other girls?"

"At school," Ty Lee continued, although she was certain her mother did not care. "I just want to be prettier than them. Or at least as pretty."

"Don't try to grow up so fast," mother said as if it had anything to do with the situation. "You're beautiful. Just not the same as them."

"Not the same as them?" It was the first Ty Lee had heard her mother say it, but it was not the first time she had thought it. She did not fit in with the upper-crust Fire Nation. Colony Trash. Colony Trash they called her and she looked it. Peachy skin, brunette. Colony Trash. Definitely had some Earth Kingdom mixed in.

"I can't spell it out for you, Ty," mother said, squirming uncomfortably. She did not want to admit her own displeasure at having her family relocated. "I know you don't necessarily get good grades already, but don't think about putting on lipstick to try to look like one of these girls. Worry about trying to make something of yourself someday."

Ty Lee paused. She did not like the idea until she realized that if she made something of herself, all of those girls would pay.

Ty Lee found her first chance at a job in the window of an expensive restaurant. It was pretty, and there were gorgeous paintings and a variety of different butterfly hybrids crafted from metal on the walls. The patrons were all gone and the shopkeeper was closing up.

"Do you want something? I can still serve you if you..."

"I'm actually, uh, I saw the sign in the door. That you're looking for a waitress," Ty Lee said, nodding feverishly.

It would be like an audition. She did many auditions for shows in the Fire Nation and surrounding areas. Although, contortionism, cartwheels and sword-swallowing had little to do with carrying trays of food and taking orders.

She did not nail the audition. Ty Lee left with an invite for a date, but not a job. Which was exactly what got her into this mess in the first place. She was only casually flirty too. Maybe she needed a new haircut or something... perhaps then people would take her seriously.

And so she returned home and decided that she would find a job some other way, before she had the water in her apartment turned off.

In the palace, Mai was enraged. It did not show in the slightest, save for maybe a particularly lethal glint in her eyes. Again. Again. Again with Azula. Again. She was a thousand times more frustrating than Zuko, because at least Zuko had met consequences for his actions in the past and occasionally valued human life other than his own.

Azula was calmly lying in their bed, thumbing through a book as if she had not done something so terrible. Given, Mai had done plenty of terrible things in her life. She never made the argument that she was ever a particularly moral or upstanding person. But Azula just had the uncanny ability to take being awful to the next level. To a level that should not exist.

"I cannot believe what you did to that girl, Azula," Mai snapped, shutting the door loudly. Azula slammed the cover of her book down on her hand in surprise. "I'm trying to stay out of this, but this has happened before. It's not an okay thing to do. You realize that don't you?"

"Oh, I'm a monster for looking at other people. You've fucked my brother before," Azula snarled but Mai did not stand down or even flinch. "You fucked him while we were together. I have yet to fuck your brother so I think I'm doing well."

"Neither of us is exactly squeaky clean in this relationship, Azula," Mai replied sharply, wanting to rip her teeth into her wife. Her forced wife. And not in the fun way.

"Zurin is probably my niece," Azula said, deciding the accusation even she did not believe would settle the argument. Zurin was too young for it to be the case, and the fact that Zurin was not actually Mai's - that was the official story, and only an idiot or a citizen of the Fire Nation believed the official story. But Azula had told herself that enough times that it had settled down as well as most of her comforting delusions.

"Azula, I don't have a problem with you looking at other people. That would be absurd. I have a problem with you getting innocent people executed because you... you just... dig your claws into them or something," Mai sighed, but it was futile.

"I can't believe with all your apathy you have so much fucking empathy," Azula snarled, rolling her eyes as if the matter was beneath her. Mai had to admit she was just... tired of the carnage.

"It's not empathy. I just think you're going to be ruling a nation in a handful of decades and you probably should sort out some of your sexual validation issues before you're pointing the army at battles and..." Mai trailed off. She simply did not care enough to continue. It was not like her to try to change Azula unless she was this level of enraged.

Mai sighed yet again, deciding it was not worth her time getting entangled in Azula's madness, and walked into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Not worth it. Not worth it. She stared at her face in the mirror until her cheeks were no longer ruddy and her heart was no longer racing.

This was all an unfortunate incident that Mai would avoid bringing up until she somehow located someone new to care for the child she and Azula had the time for but not the desire for. She brushed Azula's make-up away from the sink and washed her face.

The first time Azula wore lipstick, she was twelve.

It was for her mother's funeral. There was no body. She had been styled before and made to look less like a child and more like a princess. But the first time she wore real lipstick was for her mother's funeral.

She thought she was supposed to cry or something. It tasted vile against her tongue and she thought mostly about that, but also about how nice she looked in make-up. She always was beautiful. More beautiful than her mother, certainly.

It was stark red. Not muted to an orange for a child or a little girl. White skin, red lips, raven hair, and she felt naked in the loose dress she never saw again. A burning, empty coffin. Wood. Just wood.

She woke up the next morning with red stains on her pillow.

She woke up without a single thought of the woman who was gone.

Azula slept peacefully as Mai tossed and turned. Of course this would be delegated to her. Of course. She was finally getting settled in to this whole being married with a child thing, and then she actually had to act like a parent. There was nothing in the world that could convince her to behave maternally, but she did not exactly trust her wife with it either.

And so, Mai took her own daughter to school the next day. She woke up a good four hours before she usually would roll out of bed. Zurin was impossible to dress. Impossible. Mai wondered exactly how much they paid these poor women.

Zurin complained the entire way and Mai finally decided to simply bribe her senseless. The bribery paid off. Mai learned it well from her own parents.

She went for a brisk walk after finally prying her daughter from her arms. Shiver. There was love within her for Zurin, but not the desire to ever endure a morning like that again. Children are wonderful when you do not have to do any of the actual grunt work in raising them. Just play with them once in a while and throw them birthday parties.

It was not in Mai's high class lady training to wipe the snot of her daughter onto a napkin. Ick.

The first time Mai wore lipstick, she was twelve.

Her mother put it on her before they went to some important political event. Mai had eaten her lips to disrepair. Chewing on her lips, chomping down her nails, sucking on her hair until it turned brittle. Those were all bad habits of a young Mai.

And so her mother lacquered her nails and painted over her lips with a light orange shade Mai hated. Mai always hated orange. She tied her hair up and dotted it with shells and pearls and rubies so that Mai could not force it into her mouth if she tried.

It was an effective way of both silencing her and keeping her pretty.

Typical. Typical of her parents.

Ty Lee was roused from bed by a pounding on her door. Ugh. Her sister. She slumped in the doorway with her round eyes half open. This was not pleasant.

"You realize it's mid-afternoon, don't you?" Rei asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm helping you get a job."

"I thought none of you bitches were talking to me anymore after I destroyed that career," Ty Lee said groggily, half understanding the words she said.

"I think you could make a pretty good nanny. You do like mooching off of other people. And the only real requirement is being personable. Go pick up my daughter from school and see if there are any women who look out of place. Be personable and friendly to them. You might get a job. Or at least a friend in a high place instead of... this," Rei rattled off as if Ty Lee cared.

"Ugh. You just want me to pick up your kid so you can have the afternoon off," Ty Lee snapped and Rei made a face that revealed that Ty Lee was right. "Fine. At least I like kids," she sighed, adding quietly as she went into her room to get dressed, "would rather have a poodle-monkey, though."

Bending to people's will was one of Ty Lee's most notorious personality qualities. And it was so easy to exploit that she found herself at a needlessly selective preschool, sighing and waiting for her niece. Someday, she would learn how to say no. It was a skill she genuinely needed to pick up.

And then she saw an out of place woman. Out of place like, the wife of the crown princess out of place.

Maybe Rei wasn't so off base. Befriending royalty was not a bad idea at all.

Ty Lee approached her.

Azula was out of an all day war meeting early because it ended in what possibly could have been a massacre were the man in question not a firebender capable of blocking an assault. It was an interesting afternoon, certainly, but Azula was undeniably exhausted.

"Who's she?" was all Azula could fathom when she saw Mai talking awkwardly to a very unawkward girl.

"She could possibly be the nanny of our daughter, Azula," Mai said slowly, giving a signal with her eyes that was begging Azula to free her from the conversation. The princess wondered how long it had gone on.

"Why don't I interview you?" Azula suggested to the woman, who looked about her age. Mai gave her the most grateful expression Azula thought her face was capable of making.

"That sounds awesome." The girl leapt up with unnatural grace as Azula gestured towards a room that was not in use.

This would be quite interesting.

"I'm, well, you obviously know who I am, there's no need for that. Who are you?" started the interview. Ty Lee swallowed, blinking three times fast.

"I'm Ty Lee."

"Hm, yes. Why do you want to be in close proximity to my heir?" Azula purred with confidence and a tone that was both terrifying and intriguing.

"What?" Ty Lee stammered in response.

"Don't make me repeat myself. I never repeat myself." Azula's golden eyes glittered, as if she gained some sadistic pleasure from this meeting.

"Oh, uh. Well, I need a job and I like kids and my niece goes to her school so I just ran into, uh, M-Princess Mai and all..." Ty Lee was rubbing her neck uncomfortably. Azula quite liked how she had already broken out into a sweat.

"That's a good reason of any," Azula said and Ty Lee looked immensely relieved. "Are you in a relationship?"

"What?"

"Don't say what again."

"Wha─I mean, no, I'm not in a relationship. Nothing will at all interfere with my job I completely promise." Ty Lee decided at that moment that if she gets this job, her two bosses will be absolute lunatics.

"That's good." The look in the crown princess's eyes was disconcerting to Ty Lee, but she was desperate. Without even a bronze piece to her name, she needed this job, regardless of the fact that she felt as if she was being stripped down by golden eyes. In the sexual way.

"So, I'm open to start whenever?" Ty Lee hoped it was not too pushy.

"You can start now." Azula shrugged. She liked the new girl.

"Did you have a nanny before?" Ty Lee asked as Azula gestured for her to walk by her side.

"Oh, yes."

"Did she quit?"

"Oh, no. She was executed."

Ty Lee's foot skidded slightly on the hardwood floor.

She might not have been in the best situation.