….

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Three

,

,

Finale

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.

Azula's hair is still brown. Azula's eyes still brown. And she still looks nowhere near the most beautiful, smartest, perfect girl that Ty Lee feared. But this time the flames that spark from her fingers are no longer harmless props that they spend sleepless nights crafting themselves. And the smoke is no longer from the cancer sticks that she insists are cleansing. Lightning crackles from her fingers and that same night over the Forgetful Valley while understudies struggled to fill their roles back in Hiraa's theatre, Hime never looked more like Princess Azula than she does now.

They face one of the lakes that the forest's resident spirit might appear on, standing over the edge of a cliff overgrown with wild and free life. It is the beginning of winter, or its less white and less cold and less snowy Fire Nation's version of it. When trying to find Azula, the acrobat admittedly did not do much of a research but she knows enough. The water looked blue and clean and just perfect for a powerful spirit to drink on. She holds the piece of paper that bears her name on it, soaked from the slight drizzle that joined her in her sprint towards the enchanted forest. It is crisp and it crunches at her touch and Ty Lee wonders if this is what Azula feels like now. That one breeze of the wind and she will come apart.

Brown-eyed, brown-haired Azula still does not look at her.

"You remember." Ty Lee croaks, heaving. But she cannot keep the smile off her face, the sheer excitement exhilarating. "You remember."

Ty Lee.

Once upon a time, Ty Lee froze whenever the Princess so much as utters her name. This always meant something. Now, faced by a shell of a person who does not even look like the one before, she wants nothing but to laugh at the irony that even as the colour of her eyes and the tilt of her voice change, some things in Azula does not.

She still fears her. Ty Lee still fears that Azula might disappoint her again. Just when I thought that we are becoming friends. Just when I thought that we have a chance.

And true enough, Azula does.

"I did not." She intones. And her voice is still that of Hime's, not inflected of tones of manipulation and endless years of abrasion. Azula still did not so much as glance at her. "There is nothing worth remembering."

And she jumps.

…

.

Azula makes it. Of course she would, Zuko would likely say.

"Except this." She says with a dark chuckle after a burst of showy blue flames propelled her back up the edge before Ty Lee could even think about jumping after. She sinks into the ground, stares at the azure fireball on her hands, still does not grace Ty Lee even the smallest of acknowledgement. "This. This is the only thing that I will ever miss."

It is the confirmation of who she is but not a reminder of who she was.

The sun sets. The moon prevails. No spirit comes by to drink by the stream.

For the first time in what seem like an infinity of comfortable quietude, Ty Lee ventures. "So you don't remember."

There is many a time that she has contemplated on it being better this way. That maybe it is better off that the Princess Azula of the Hundred Year War to be merely a subject of conspiracy theories and outrageous myths, to be loved as a tragic villain in art and to be forgotten from the world's unsightly history, to be feared merely as a cautionary tale and to be remembered as the identity to be avoided. While Hime lives on loved and revered even as she herself hides more under a mask only when she is not wearing the one onstage, Ty Lee wonders if Princess Azula is better off dead in the eyes of everyone.

Hime has always sounded more human and honest when she is on the dress and boots and face of Princess Azula.

Azula always lies. Azula always lies. Azula always lies.

And though Ty Lee misses those distant times when the golden gaze was only fixed on her and only her and though she hates those brown eyes that merely considered her warily and though she wants to go back when she hears her real name from her lips and though she abhors the fact she has not even heard her fake name on Hime's, Ty Lee still thinks that perhaps it really is better off this way.

"There is nothing worth remembering." Azula repeats, still on the verge of hysterical laughter. "Must be a reason why I chose to forget in the first place."

And fear seizes the acrobat once more. Disappointment. Just when she thought they have a chance, just when she thought they could be real friends. Azula always disappoints her. "And yet you remember me." She pushes on, unwilling to abandon that small glimmer of hope.

There is still a chance.

There is still a chance that they can restore… no, create their beautiful friendship.

It always was meant to be. It is just that it never happened.

And Azula is always set to disappoint her.

Azula always lies.

She scoffs, still not looking at her. "I think I am smart enough to recognize you." She pauses, folds one knee and the telltale flicks of whitish current sparks on her wiggling fingers. The condescension on her tone… Ty Lee does not even want to think about it. "And certainly intelligent enough to know that my unusual fixation to the Princess is no coincidence."

"But you left." Ty Lee looks around, frantic. She guesses that it must make sense. That Azula is still not looking back at her because this time she is nothing more than a fleeting word in a textbook. And she wonders when this girl stopped being this Azula and became one and the same with the Princess that must have cherished her once, despite everything "And you came here. Surely you must be planning to—"

"There is nothing worth remembering." Azula says firmly. "There is nothing worth coming back to."

"I love you." Ty Lee finally snaps. "Isn't that enough?"

This time, Azula raises her head. In the past six months, Ty Lee has been more than happy to keep up with a onesided conversation with this Azula. Except that this time as she saw the actress firebend just sealed her identity to her. And this Azula definitely is her Azula.

Her brown eyes are cold, judging. "You fear me."

"I never stopped." Ty Lee admits, shrugging. "And call it sense of obligation or whatever, I just fear that I should love you. I cannot explain it. Do not make me. Making sense of things is your forte. You know how I hate things that do not make sense."

"I don't." Azula merely huffs and Ty Lee wants to strangle her.

"I hate you too." The acrobat grits out then sighs, trying to contain herself from just kissing the woman senseless and explain her… illogic. Azula is far from being a tactile learner but she could just be infuriating sometimes, amnesia and all. "But as I said do not make me explain it. Agni, because I do not know why too."

"I do not know you." Azula pointedly reminds her, none so gently. Brown-eyed, brown-haired Azula reminds her, eyebrows raised. "As far as I am concerned, you are just a colleague that happens to be Fire Nation noblewoman."

"And you are the Princess!" said noblewoman asserts. "You conquered Ba Sing Se!"

"Then there must be a reason why I decided to forget that."

Silence.

"Maybe because Azula the Conqueror is forgotten in place of the Mad Princess. I do not know. It does not matter." Then Azula sighs. "I hate things that do not make sense too." She whispers, looking distantly at the rising full moon. Ty Lee kneels beside her and surprisingly enough, the brown-eyed, brown-haired not-so-stranger allows it. "And right now, me being merely a lowly town actress and you being just that upbeat teammate are the only things that I want to remember."

…

.

"Let us start over again then."

Though Azula's hair is still peasant brown and though her eyes are still far from the gold that once struck fear in the hearts of most war veterans, when she sighed in resignation, Ty Lee could not help but be reminded of the beautiful, smart, perfect Princess that she once called her Sugarcakes.

"That sounds fun."

When their lips meet and not one pair pull away, Ty Lee can somehow delude herself that they still have a chance.

…

.

And perhaps they do.

They lay entwined one full moon, bare and exposed. Azula's eyes are still brown, her hair of the same shade but Ty Lee finds that she is getting used to it and slowly she starts to forget about the golden-eyed princess who once set the safety net on fire. Post-coital bliss is wonderful and she wonders if she would have felt the same if she surrendered to the Princess' wiles all those years ago.

Ty Lee is sure that in her own twisted, awkward way that the Princess did love her. The acrobat had feared her too much to even acknowledge that. But being with Hime… being with the Azula that is not quite Azula (who looks, sounds and even acts nothing like her but somehow knows how to read Ty Lee like she once did) somehow strengthens the belief that in another world where she is not the trained to be the tyrant she became after Ty Lee left, they would have been perfect for each other.

Ty Lee wholeheartedly believes that she would have loved her if she did not learn to fear her first.

And she is startled to hear that Azula, this Azula whose being Azula is only embodied by her writing her own tragedy for public's domain (and Ty Lee later finds out, dreams that do not make sense until she put two and two together after reading the history that was written by victors), thinks so too.

"I was thinking if Princess Azula loved Ty Lee too."

But I—I am sure that… Ty Lee loved her.

"Does it matter?" she murmurs on the woman's pallid brown shoulder. Making love with Azula is every bit of how she imagined it, a fire that slowly burns, consumes, engulfs. And yet she is drowning. Everything in this woman is brown, even the peasant clothes she helped her disrobe from. "Does it matter? You said that the past is not worth coming back to anyway?"

More than she feared her anyway.

"I think it matters." She responds softly, unsure. Out of character but then again she never knew Azula. Nobody ever did. Nobody ever bothered. "Because I think I love Ty Lee."

Silence.

Ty Lee freezes yet again.

Azula chuckles and the throaty mirthless laugh almost sounds like… "Does that make sense to you?"

It's okay. You can laugh. It's funny.

She resumes. "I never thought of you as Joon Ah. I always saw you as Ty Lee, the perfect Ty Lee. All the other girls cannot seem to do it right. Mai too. But I always seem to be much dissatisfied when it comes to Ty Lee. Only Ty Lee."

The acrobat remembers how easy it has been to audition for the role, how offhanded is the director's remark that the previous Ty Lee had been traumatized as if that happens all the time.

Hime is like that with everyone.

She recalls how amazed the company were when she lasted more than one performance.

"I am not like most people." was her only happy and exultant answer. Only Azula ever succeeded on giving her the reason to say that.

"Did you know that I also was the one who wrote Ty Lee's lines?" she continues and now she rakes her fingers into Ty Lee's unbraided hair, gently running circles. Her hands are warm, the touch of a Firebender. "Did you know that I wrote her that way I remembered… no, the way that I wanted her to be remembered?"

Ty Lee never stopped to wonder why it had been so easy for her to take on the role of herself. And why they all say that she is perfect for it. Azula has always known her best. Azula always have known how she is just unlike everybody else.

Azula sighs. Her breath is warm. "Likewise, I never thought myself as Hime."

No matter what happens, never forget who you are.

"When I was writing my part of the play, I always thought I am the Princess herself. All her achievements. All her pain. Somehow even though I look nothing like her and remember a different sort of childhood, I always know that those are part of me. And the fiction that I am writing about her is actually real."

She holds Ty Lee tighter.

"And I found out that I do not want to let it go."

….

.

.

The past might not be worth coming back to.

But that does not mean that the future is not worth looking forward to.

Ty Lee's father told her (or the seven of them) once that being in love is being able to imagine that person with you in ten years time. She never thought of being in the circus for five. She never thought she would last three in the Kyoushi Warriors. It always whatever the latest calling is and if there is anything that called a little louder…

Then why not?

Azula always called a little louder.

Azula has always been that one constant in her life that she always seem to come back to.

"The thing is, I somehow can imagine myself being with you for the rest of my life."

Because she makes her cry. She makes her laugh. And she makes her feel all those different things that makes life worth living. Knowing how to fear is knowing how to survive. Knowing how to love is knowing how to live.

"Do you still fear me?"

Yes, she does. She fears being disappointed. She fears Azula's love. She fears falling deeper than she already fell. She fears everything about her this brown eyed, brown haired woman even though she no longer is the golden eyed, dark haired Princess who once… "Yes."

She smirks. And despite the plain, boring features, she looks beautiful. The most beautiful, smartest, perfect girl in the world. "Good."

Ty Lee loves… has learned to love everything about her.

"I love you too." she adds.

And so Ty Lee does not fear the future anymore.

(END)

….