AN: This is a Tyzula!Alphabet Story that is more of a chronological drabble series tied together with a solitary theme than a fic with an intense plot. It will have twenty-six chapters and use the following words:
acceptance, bondage, compassion, division, echo, fear, giving, hope, intensity, jetties, killer, loss, mother, nurturing, opposition, practice, question, relationship, selfishness, trust, understanding, venom, worried, xanadu, yes, zenith.

Sleeping Beauty

Scared to die
I won't pretend
More than anything
I'm afraid to meet your end
I can see your light fading
"Dark Star" by Hypnogaja

Night One: Acceptance

"You can leave, you know," Fire Lord Zuko says, as if it is even in the realm of possibility for Princess Ty Lee.

She is just staring at her feet, the tea in her hand having long ago gone cold. He looks at her with such pity in his eyes, and she tries to remind herself that he is hurting too. That he loves her too, but not how Ty Lee loves her, and, therefore, he cannot understand why Ty Lee will not leave even for a second.

"I feel horrible. I can't leave in case she wakes up," Ty Lee whispers and Zuko frowns faintly.

"Well, if you need to get some water or pee or anything, just tell me or Mai." The Fire Lord feels uncomfortable, but Ty Lee is remorseless. She would feel, if she could feel at this point. "Katara will be here in three nights. Azula will be fine for that long; every healer says so."

"For that long," Ty Lee whispers as she picks at her bare knees.

Bare legs. Ty Lee loves how smooth her own legs feel, but they do not feel as good as Azula's hands on them. The princess pins her fiercely against the wall, their lips locked and Azula's tongue in her mouth, pressing against her cheek.

Ty Lee digs her arms into her and they are both so alive, so vibrant. Ty Lee can feel their hearts racing and pounding. She is damp and hot and wraps herself more tightly around Azula as the princess pushes her hands further up her smooth, bare legs.

"You okay?" Zuko asks, interrupting Ty Lee's beautiful image of her vibrant life before this mess.

"Yeah..." Ty Lee murmurs.

A few days ago, Azula just slipped away. Away from this world, away from everything. The sickness was sudden and baffling; it just came out of nowhere and hit Ty Lee like lightning. Now Azula has been surrounded by healers for days, and they say she should live for a while, but they have no idea when or if she will wake up.

Princess Ty Lee is trying her absolute best to be an optimist about this. But accepting her loss of Azula is almost impossible to her. Still, she just stares and hopes that something in Azula knows that she has refused to leave her side, even for a second.

Night falls, Ty Lee paces. Night falls, Ty Lee becomes so tired.

She looks at Azula, Azula lying in front of her. The healers are gone, but nearby, in case there is some kind of malevolent new development. Ty Lee walks to her slowly and sits down on the bed. Azula does not move, and Ty Lee does not know why she is doing this to herself.

Ty Lee lies down, slipping beneath the blankets. She feared they would be clammy, or sweaty or somehow noxious, but they feel how they do any night. And Ty Lee rests her head on Azula's shoulder.

She will sleep by her tonight.

Because she knows that it could be the last.

睡美人的镜子

"You can leave, you know," Fire Lord Zuko says to his sister, as if he expects Princess Azula to even listen to him for a moment.

Her golden eyes are fixated on her feet, the vacant stare of a woman who has been spending years of her life trying to fix an unfixable broken thing called herself. Azula hates his pity; it makes her want to burn him or scream at him or just throw herself from the window behind her. But she remains icy and stoic. She will not leave Ty Lee's bedside, even for a second.

"I will not leave or move until she wakes up, brother. Do you understand?" Azula says coldly and Zuko frowns, not bothering to conceal his discontent.

"Well, if you need anyth─"

"I need nothing, Zuko. Leave." Azula clenches her jaw. It is not as if he cares about Ty Lee. It is not as if he even thinks Azula is capable of the love she feels. Nor is it as if Azula has ever shared the love she feels.

Azula just looks at her bruised, bare legs.

Bare legs. Azula loves how smooth Ty Lee's long, slender legs feel, and they make her burn with a raging inferno of desire. Princess Azula pins her paramour hard against the cool stone wall wall, their lips locked and Azula's tongue in her mouth, pressing against her cheek.

Ty Lee digs her arms into her and Azula has never felt more alive.

"You okay?" Zuko asks, interrupting Azula's blissful reverie.

"I would appreciate it if you would leave me in peace," Azula says coldly and Zuko knows that it would be a waste of time to try to reason with her.

Three days and eleven hours ago, Ty Lee slipped from the world of the living. Azula was livid; Azula blamed everyone and anything within the vicinity. Her rage was white hot and potent. Ty Lee's sickness came from absolutely nowhere and Azula was utterly certain that it was poison.

But the healers found no trace of it in her system, and once Azula had calmed down, she accepted that it was likely the truth. Now Ty Lee has been swarmed with healers and people who anger Azula for three days and eleven hours, and they keep saying Ty Lee will live, but they are so clueless about when she will wake up, no matter how many times Azula demands a more specific answer.

Princess Azula knows that Ty Lee would want her to keep her chin up. "Life is too short to be anything but happy," she would say. But Azula thinks that it is impossible to keep that in mind when she is in this situation. She can only stare, sometimes needing to leave because of her panic attacks, and she hopes that Ty Lee will know that Azula refused to leave her side.

That Azula would not accept losing Ty Lee. Because Ty Lee did not accept Azula's sulking, Azula's descent into illness when Ty Lee worked tirelessly to repair her.

Night falls, Azula paces and sweats. Night falls, Azula is tired, even though she knows she will just have vivid and horrific nightmares.

Azula looks at what might as well be a corpse lying in front of her, resting on the dark red mattress. Two days and fourteen hours ago, Azula had hallucinations that it was soaked with Ty Lee's blood and Mai had to drag her away to Mai and Zuko's room and calm her down, even though Azula did not want to leave Ty Lee.

The healers have left, as if their families are somehow more important than Azula's family. Selfish jerks. Azula walks to Ty Lee slowly and sits down beside her, hoping no one will think she is trying to bed a comatose girl. Ty Lee does not move and Azula tries not to think too much.

Azula lies down and tries to sleep beside Ty Lee.

睡美人的镜子

They sleep beside each other. One is comatose, the other exhausted from tears she could not hide, that spilled freely from her eyes. And, at last, they both drift away, wishing they could somehow be connected in their dreams.

Ty Lee wakes in a strange place. It feels weird to her, and she has no idea what she is surrounded by. She gasps for breath, and realizes how aromatic and fruity the air is. It smells like the perfume of a young, rich girl. This world is utterly beautiful, and it is definitely in Ty Lee's dreams.

Princess Ty Lee has never been a lucid dreamer in her life. Therefore, she immediately suspects that this is something strange and supernatural. She scurries away from the pretty patch of jungle where she has woken up, and starts walking through the humid and beautiful trees.

She is surrounded by plants, flowers and fruits that are all in vibrant jewel tones. Ty Lee would stop to examine or even taste them if she were not so focused on finding the source of this odd dream as quickly as possible.

Ty Lee suddenly is gone from her damp and crystalline jungle, and the air around her is arid and hot. Desert. She has gone straight from a jungle to a desert.

"Ty Lee?" asks a voice that is familiar. A voice that Ty Lee has feared she would never hear again.

"Azula?" Ty Lee responds sharply, spinning around in circles looking for the princess.

Princess Azula runs to Ty Lee as quickly as she can, thinking about how she thought she might never see her again on anything but a deathbed or a fire. Their lips collide fiercely and they wrap their arms tightly around each other.

Azula wonders what she could have done to earn this beautiful paradise, or how the Universe would ever reward her by letting her share this paradise. But she tries not to think about that for too long as she drags Ty Lee further into her arms.

"Azula, I missed you," Ty Lee says softly, wanting to say her wife's name a thousand upon a thousand times. "Azula, Azula..."

Azula kind of wants Ty Lee to scream her name a thousand upon a thousand times. Her body wants and craves and needs them both to be perfectly nude. It is her dream, of course, and it should be allowed to be a hot dream if she wants it to be, but they gently break apart.

"We should look around this place," Azula says softly and Ty Lee nods in agreement.

"Is this real?" Ty Lee asks as Azula moves ahead of her and starts scouting around the desert.

"It's pretty obviously a dream," Azula says, shrugging and climbing to examine the desert around her.

"Is it mine?" Ty Lee asks and Azula turns around, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course it isn't, stupid. It's mine," Azula says and Ty Lee's lips part in surprise.

"I heard once that if you love someone enough, you can share these things with them," Ty Lee says and Azula snorts derisively.

"Right... of course." Azula rolls her eyes. Ty Lee's ravings about auras and spirits have always struck Azula as completely absurd.

"No, no. Tell me something I don't know about you, but your brother or Mai would know," Ty Lee insists fiercely as Azula climbs up onto a rock and starts surveying their surroundings.

Azula contemplates the notion for a moment and ultimately decides that it can't hurt.

"My brother and I once broke this vase filled with really expensive mint oil from the Earth Kingdom. My grandfather treasured it because it was all he had left of his military career. I'm starting to wonder if he was insane," Azula says and Ty Lee has definitely never heard this story. "My brother and I hid the stained carpet in an unused cabinet in the guest wing of the living quarters, and we buried the pieces near the turtleduck pond."

Ty Lee then says, "When I was in the Boiling Rock with Mai, she told me that she wanted you to kill her that day, and that I shouldn't have gotten involved, so that I could have you. I never told anyone because I didn't want her to sound weak. You two really hate sounding weak."

Azula is somewhat stunned by that. "I had no idea..."

"I try not to talk about the time you locked me in prison to rot," Ty Lee says as Azula slides down from the rock and decides that they are alone in this wasteland.

"That's for the best," Azula purrs before gazing at Ty Lee. "How did you respond? You must have been livid."

"I accepted what I did. In the end, I knew it would either work out or it wouldn't and I couldn't waste my life being angry," Ty Lee admits, shrugging.

Azula looks at her, her lips pursed. She does not want to think about acceptance. "Well, we're trapped in this desert with nothing interesting to do, and it doesn't seem like anything here wants to kill us yet..."

Ty Lee cannot hide the amused smirk. "So, you're thinking what I'm thinking then...?"

Azula has already starting stripping off her shirt.

睡美人的镜子

Azula slowly wakes up and wants to cling to her dream, although she knows that it is gone. Acceptance? Why would she ever accept this. Why would she ever accept this? There must be something she can do, and none of these people will ever steal it from her.

She sits up, looking at the beautiful woman lying beside her. Princess Azula almost hoped that Ty Lee would stir and wake right now, but she will not. And for now, Azula has to accept that.

Until she rescues Ty Lee, no matter what the cost.

Princess Azula has lost enough in her life to make her willing to lay waste to a thousand empires in order to get this one woman back from what might as well be death.

Azula will only accept this dismal situation if she dies too.

In the morning, she tracks down Mai. The Fire Lady looks exhausted, and she has Izumi on her lap.

"What do you want?" Mai asks sharply, and Azula would chastise her rudeness if she were not so preoccupied with Ty Lee.

"When you were in the Boiling Rock, did you tell Ty Lee you wanted me to kill you and that she shouldn't have interfered?"

Mai's jaw drops. She can only stare at Azula, agape.

"Yes. But how did you... why?"

Azula is gone without inquiring further.

睡美人的镜子

Ty Lee wakes, startled, breathing heavily. It could not be true. She had heard about those silly stories of shared dreams and the true intimacy of it. But even Ty Lee, who would not knock a single thing she heard right away, could not believe that kind of thing.

Yet, here she is, having just been on what feels like an impossible journey.

Azula is still beside her, still a breathing corpse. Ty Lee gazes at her for some time, at the rise and fall of her chest, or how cold and sad her lips look. The dream was beautiful, but reality still exists, and still insists on dragging Ty Lee back into it.

Ty Lee knows that she has to accept this reality if she is going to change it. But the acceptance is as hard to swallow as the gross fish oil her mom used to give her when she had colds. Still, Ty Lee will not give up.

She breathes in and out.

Acceptance. Azula is gone for now, but Azula is never gone forever.

She tries to go back to sleep, resting her head on Azula yet again.

It is futile.

"Sorry. I didn't notice you were..." Zuko remarks as he sees Ty Lee sleeping beside Azula. "... here."

"I'm awake. It's okay," Ty Lee says, feeling exhausted.

Then, Ty Lee blushes as she feels the heat in her thighs, and so she keeps herself covered by the silky blankets from the waist down.

"Zuko," Ty Lee demands. "Will you take me to where you hid your grandfather's mint oil?"

The Fire Lord's eyes flash in shock, but he obliges.