Ty Lee sobbed to Chou when she woke up in the middle of the night. She was not one for crying, ever, and she prided herself on seeing the silver lining in every situation. But she felt weakened and violated and also confused, because she did have a bit of a crush on Azula, yes.

But she did not ask for those sharp fingernails sliding up her thighs as she was locked in fear.

"What's wrong, dear?" Chou asked and she sounded much kinder than she was when she was ordering Ty Lee around. She woke when she heard the girl so upset, and did realize that Ty Lee was probably having a hard time getting settled in a life as a servant when she once was a rich noble girl.

"She... I don't know..." Ty Lee blushed furiously as she struggled to form the words. She did not know how she was supposed to phrase it. "Princess Azula, she just... she kind of..."

"She came onto you?" Chou inquired, laughing at that. "I thought this was much more serious."

"B-b-much more serious?" Ty Lee blathered, startled at Chou's reaction.

"She's just toying with you. She loves her wife," Chou said, although her voice faltered slightly in the last sentence. Ty Lee was not good with expressions, and even she could tell that Chou was lying without trying to hide it. "She probably won't do it again. I was worried it was the Fire Lord. You're pretty good with Zurin and I would be yanking my hair out if you got pregnant."

Ty Lee rubbed her nose, not understanding. Her mother had complained before about her father having wandering affections when she could not hear anyone in the house. Infidelity was just a part of aristocratic life in the Fire Nation.

"So, because she can't get me pregnant, it's not a big deal?" Ty Lee whispered, her wide, sparkling eyes like saucers.

"It'll work out." And Chou quickly dismissed the fact that Ty Lee was in so much pain and confusion.

Welcome to the world of being a servant instead of a noble, Ty Lee had to admit to herself.

It made her feel sick, but she went back to bed and got enough sleep to be able to take care of Zurin in the morning.

The first time Azula figured out what royals did behind closed doors was when she walked in on her father and a servant girl giving him oral sex.

She was six or seven at the time and it utterly confused her in so many ways. He tried, feebly, to explain it to her later, but his efforts were somewhat futile. It stuck in Azula's mind for years, and remained there as she became an adult and her own desires began to wander beyond just Mai.

Perhaps she did not blame him, perhaps she did.

"Why can't we have a discussion without getting into an argument?" demanded a gravelly voice behind the door Ty Lee was trying to inconspicuously pass.

She was carrying a basket of Zurin's laundry that Chou told her to go take to the servants downstairs while Zurin was at school. The morning had been unpleasant; Ty Lee was incredibly not used to waking up early. When she worked for the circus in the city she worked nights, and maybe rolled out of bed in the afternoon to go practice before the night's show.

Her life revolved around moonlight, unlike the sun of the Fire Nation's royal family. Then, exhausted, she somehow managed to get Zurin ready for school. The girl was more amicable the second day than the first, and Ty Lee was relieved that things were getting easier and not harder, especially after what happened with Azula.

"You're the one complaining all the time. I don't complain about you," Azula snarled and Ty Lee stood in the hallway very still. She was genuinely afraid that if she was noticed, things would unravel.

They were fighting. The lovely crown princess and her beautiful bride. Ty Lee was at the wedding, not that either of them paid her any mind. Her father was useful to Ozai and so his family was invited. She wound up going home with some boy she just met, and did not think twice about the princess who now seemed to be sexually interested in Ty Lee.

Ty Lee remembered the announcements of the birth of Zurin, and claims that Azula was perfect despite the pregnancy, but Ty Lee noticed so much of Mai in Zurin that it felt odd to her. She was not exactly certain who was the birth mother of Zurin, nor did she need to know.

"I ignore so much, Azula," Mai said sharply and Ty Lee did not want to move. "You think I honestly approve of half of what you do? I mean, I'm morally questionable but I'm not that bad. No one wants to play your twisted games, especially not me."

"I don't want to play games with you," Azula said, more quietly that time. "I love you and I hope you know that."

Mai sighed and Ty Lee felt a mild rush of relief. "I know. I love you too. You just don't like to make things easy on me, do you?"

"Well, that would be awfully boring," Azula purred and they were both silent after that. "I'm the only thing that makes your life interesting." Her voice was slightly breathless; Ty Lee could tell they had exchanged a particularly forceful kiss.

And with that, she scampered away with the laundry. Her intrigue into the marriages she often destroys was a negative quality of her personality. But if Azula did truly love Mai, Ty Lee would be in a world of trouble if she responded. Maybe it was a test.

The other servants in the palace refused to talk about Princess Azula, but they were terrified. Something about Azula was more frightening to them than Fire Lord Ozai himself, and Ty Lee could already agree after only a week of working for the royal family of the Fire Nation.

Ty Lee returned to Zurin's room after delivering the laundry, her thoughts still racing with overhearing Mai and Azula's fight. And then their subsequent making up. Ty Lee felt that aching sensation of getting herself into more trouble than she could manage.

She cleaned up the room, washing the toys, preparing everything for Zurin's return from classes. As she was kneeling on the red carpet, cleaning a small stain that was trying to get the best of her, the princess brushed by. Ty Lee tried to turn invisible, but Azula stepped two steps backwards and entered her daughter's room.

"So how are you settling in?" Azula murmured, shutting the door behind her. "I have to apologize for... coming on to you."

An apology for the princess was... unexpected to Ty Lee. It seemed like the kind of thing royals would get used to doing.

"I don't really need an apology," and Ty Lee hoped Azula would not take that as a rude rejection. But the princess just made a hmph sound in the back of her throat. Ty Lee's stomach twisted into knots as she tried to figure out what it could possibly mean.

Azula licked her lips in a way that both made Ty Lee tingle slightly and then hate herself for it. The princess sat down on Zurin's bed, examining a stuffed dragon closely. It was hard to imagine the formidable Princess Azula as a mother. Ty Lee supposed that was why she had nannies for Zurin.

"I know. I shouldn't have treated you as a slave girl. You are of noble lineage and your situation... well, I don't pity people. Only the weak pity people or allow themselves to be pitied. But I am openly apologizing, and hope that will be the end of this," Azula said softly and Ty Lee nodded once. Her eyes glittered in a way that Azula found enticing.

Her innocence. Her innocence was beyond intriguing. Azula just wanted to corrupt her, wanting to dominate her.

"Well, Zurin likes you. So I suppose I'll keep my hands to myself," Azula purred and Ty Lee felt like there were layers to her words that Ty Lee could not quite comprehend.

"Can I-uh, can I ask something that's probably way out of line," Ty Lee said quietly, her gut lurching with the fear of asking Azula this.

"Nothing is stopping you. But nothing is stopping my reaction, which can be volatile," she said and Ty Lee found it strange how her words could be so sophisticated yet threaten brutality with every syllable. It was intoxicating. And dangerous.

"Which of you had Zurin?" Ty Lee asked and Azula laughed. It was high and cold yet it made something within Ty Lee's core burn like frostbite, or some cross between fear and arousal that made her skin prickle.

"Is it that hard to guess?" Azula breathed and Ty Lee nodded. Azula supposed it was, and it was meant to be that way. "I did," Azula said, supposing that honesty would not hurt. "And that's all you need to know, and I wouldn't take kindly to asking about my family again."

Professional yet volatile. Ty Lee just gulped and returned to cleaning as Azula walked away.

The first time Ty Lee realized what noble people were allowed to do was when her father secured the entire family with seats at a restaurant that was booked for months and they did not have a reservation at.

Furthermore, the way the waitstaff were treated was probably worse than the Fire Nation soldiers in the Earth Kingdom treat the peasants. It made Ty Lee feel powerful, although she was too young to truly understand.

When she was older, she felt so much regret for enjoying stomping on those below her.

Ty Lee called upon Rei to go out to lunch on her first day off. Mai was spending the day with Zurin and her old friend, and Chou told Ty Lee to get lost because Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Azula were having secret war meetings all day.

"So you're telling me that she's into you? You? The circus freak," Rei said and Ty Lee breathed in very slowly. Of course she would be subjected to this. Of course.

"Yes. And I... I don't know what to do," Ty Lee said, setting her elbows on the table and her chin in the palms of her hands.

"She's dangerous. There are a lot of lunatics out there, and she's going to get obsessed with you," Rei said, sipping her tea as if Ty Lee's problem were nothing. "I would quit before it gets out of hand."

"Yeah, I'll quit and live on the streets. There's a good suggestion." Ty Lee was not a sarcastic person, but Rei had no idea what Ty Lee was going through. That she had no money to fall back on, and no place to stay if she left the palace.

"Then avoid her. You don't like your boss hitting on you, either get a new boss, or try not to get hit on," Rei said and Ty Lee sighed. This was a waste of time.

Ty Lee left before her food was even served, and Rei just shook her head in response. It was at that moment that Ty Lee realized she had absolutely no desire to associate with people who would rather see her as a servant than their family just because of an affair.

It made her angry, and she spent the rest of the day just walking around Caldera, wandering aimlessly.

The first time Mai learned what people in dignified positions could do, it was when her parents were drafting a marriage contract for her with Prince Zuko. Mai did not quite understand the implications of it, but she figured there was nothing she could do to stop it.

They had made their decision, and they knew that as soon as they birthed a daughter, she would be of great political use to them. Mai wanted to be a soldier. She dreamt of being a Yuyan Archer, or perhaps a spy in espionage in Ba Sing Se.

But, instead, she would be a prince's wife.

It... was complicated.

A week passed without anything strange happening between Ty Lee and Azula. Ty Lee did not know if she was relieved or just unhappy about it. These conflicted feelings were utterly excruciating.

It was at the end of that week when Ty Lee was singing Zurin a lullaby. Zurin claimed, at first, that she hated lullabies, but she did allow Ty Lee to do it. And Zurin wound up liking it in the end, wrapping herself in her silk blankets and listening intently.

Ty Lee gently tucked her in and left, only to overhear incredible commotion in the corridor outside of the throne room. She knew she might be stringing herself up by going to investigate, but she had to know. Had to know.

She did not recognize the man walking out the throne room at first. It was only when he turned his face and she saw his scar did she know that it was Prince Zuko.

Prince Zuko, who was banished. The fact that he was in the Fire Nation again was troubling.

Ty Lee ran as Azula looked for the source of scuffling footsteps and Ozai gestured for them both to come into the throne room. It must have been a family matter. Ty Lee knew it was a family matter, and she just served the royal family.

But she did ache with curiosity.

That night, Ty Lee was in her bedroom when Azula walked in. She looked Ty Lee up and down and Ty Lee felt so exposed, so naked.

"My brother is back," Azula said, and Ty Lee tried to act surprised. "My brother is back and... and I want you to make me feel better."

Her words were not layered in violence; they were now layered with sex. Ty Lee could feel that. And the thought that she had known Azula for less than a month was not problematic; Ty Lee was a fan of one night stands. It was the fact that Azula was not someone she wanted to get tangled with, not at all.

Ty Lee was in her pajamas ─ loosest, most comfortable red shirt and only red lace underwear. The level of exposed she felt was high as she ran her eyes up and down the silk robe Azula wore. They were both, open, both silken, both soft. And Ty Lee wanted to touch her but also could not bring herself to get involved. The princess was dangerous and messing with her family was dangerous.

Azula walked to her, shutting the door with a click. Ty Lee could only think of their encounter, in which Azula tried to come on to her and Ty Lee wanted only to escape. But now she wanted it, now she felt something inside of her that craved what was terrible for her.

Ty Lee sat there in bed, unsure what to do, as Azula moved to her and straddled her. It was breathless, leaning towards tender although there was a malevolent gleam in Azula's golden eyes. Azula slid her hands up the loose cotton shirt and rested on Ty Lee's bare breasts.

Her hands and fingers and sharp nails pressed down, to the response of an uncontrollable moan from Ty Lee's lips. The princess responded with a small smirk, clearly aroused by it as well. Azula kissed Ty Lee's neck and her lips burnt like the fire she could bend.

Azula's hands strayed, brushing across her, explorative, beneath Ty Lee's shirt, covering her body in gooseflesh. Her lips collided with Ty Lee's skin again and Ty Lee moaned, hoping no one could hear. Unless this was heard regularly; unless she was not as special as she thought she was.

When Azula's lips touched Ty Lee's lips, their tongues moved together and Azula's pressed against the inside of Ty Lee's cheek. It was rough, violent and Ty Lee enjoyed it, her gasps intertwined with Azula's breath, her moans swallowed by red lips.

Azula's hips grinded against her. It felt as good as it felt wrong. There was a burning in Ty Lee's slit that she could not control, nor did she want to control.

Their lips pressed together again and again and again. And Azula felt her and felt her before pulling Ty Lee down on top of her. Ty Lee was baffled; she did not want to be on the princess. That was... that was bad.

It was only from sharp nails brushing along her neck and back that gradually made Ty Lee realize what Azula was expecting her to do. And... Ty Lee had never done that before. She had a variety of types of sex ─ some she was nearly ashamed of ─ but sex with a woman was not something she had even ever thought about.

"Go on," Azula whispered in her ear and her hot breath on Ty Lee's neck made the aching intensify.

Ty Lee slipped down on her, her lips trailing over her navel as Azula withheld a moan. It was with fear pounding in her heart as much as the fiery blood of arousal that she did as the princess asked. The sound of her orgasm was not frightening, as Ty Lee imagined it would be.

It made her burn all the brighter.

Ty Lee moved, kissing Azula's neck, but the princess was slipping away. All the servant could do was blink as Azula fumbled with her clothes, leaving halfway through. Was she actually leaving halfway through?

Or maybe it was over for her. Ty Lee was so clueless and in so much agony.

And Azula was gone, as if perhaps she was a ghost. Ty Lee lay down in her bed and tried to process what happened, but her thoughts were only filled with sex. Her fingers traced down her body and she gave herself pleasure, as her thoughts flickered with Azula and not their normal repertoire.

"She's dangerous. There are a lot of lunatics out there, and she's going to get obsessed with you," Rei said, sipping her tea as if Ty Lee's problem were nothing. "I would quit before it gets out of hand."

The memory burned, but it did not burn as much as Ty Lee's unresolved longing.

Azula slipped into bed beside Mai and Mai could feel the sex radiating from her. It made Mai grit her teeth, but she showed no emotion. Whomever was the subject of Azula's affection was only going to be used like tissues and tossed aside, and Mai was there to stay.

Whether she liked it or not.

And Mai was plagued by thoughts of Zuko.

"What's your father even playing at by bringing him home?" Mai asked, her eyes flickering up and down Azula's clearly satisfied body.

"I'm trying to figure that out. I think Zuko is even more confused than we are," Azula sighed, her eyes fluttering with the desire to go to sleep.

Zuko's return was immensely troubling to Azula, but she knew she was on top.

She would be Fire Lord.

Oh yes, oh yes.