AN: Woooo! It's Tyzula Week.

Pairing: Azula/Ty Lee.

Warnings: Extreme abuse, violence, character death and mild sexual content.

The Deluge
(Or: Lullabies for the Monster Under Your Bed)

by delictabledahlia

Handwriting

Zuko stares at the cacography of the Imperial Officer.

The quick, bulleted notes and the misspellings give Zuko something else to think about than the horrible mess. He cannot stop the urge to hurl; he has been withholding vomit since he found out about what happened. No one else is doing much better, even the police who should be detached.

He is going to have to answer for it legally, but he tries to keep that out of his mind.

"I don't..." he says as he sees Mai slowly walking towards him.

He doesn't know what was going to come next but it could be any number of things and still work. He is shocked. He is horrified. He does not know what to say about the horrific sight within those beautiful walls past that very well kept garden of pink flowers.

Silent tears roll from Mai's eyes.

Zuko has never seen her cry.

But Mai can barely keep from sobbing.

Years before an Imperial Officer was taking messy notes on a crime spree, Ty Lee and Azula are sitting in a sunny teashop on a very ordinary morning.

Ty Lee never knew Azula could do that. Could make those words just fit right onto nothing more than a napkin that has a splotch of water gradually spreading across the flimsy paper.

"Can I borrow your handwriting next time I need to do anything?" Ty Lee asks brightly with a bat of her eyelashes. Azula shrugs and goes back to it as Ty Lee nearly falls out of her chair trying to read it upside down.

She is distant. Ty Lee does not like that at all and it really scares her so much and she wants to scream so bad but she can't. She wants to shake Azula so bad but she can't because shaking the heir to the throne is definitely frowned upon in society and so she just reads those words spreading across the rapidly decaying napkin like black spider webs.

It is a to-do list. Ty Lee pretends it is poetry because it looks way too pretty to be a to-do list.

But then Ty Lee looks past the gorgeous letters and sees what it is about. "You're ready?"

"Not necessarily. I have to get it approved by the legal system," Azula says, her eyes not lifting from the list. Ty Lee offers a tiny smile that Azula does not return.

Ty Lee suggests, "We don't have to run that far to get away. We could stay in the country, if that helps the verdict at all," as the homely waitress brings them their tea.

"It might." Azula shrugs and then sighs dreamily. Ty Lee is enraptured by her every move, as she continues to fixate her gaze on the list. She is wishing that Azula were talking to her instead of that, but she is way too excited about what is to come for the both of them.

Ty Lee dropped everything and went to help Azula recover as soon as she possibly could. They spent so long together as Azula lived the life of a rubber band and Ty Lee lived a life in a powder keg giving off sparks. It was complete turmoil, but they fell in love, of course.

Or maybe back in love.

Ty Lee smiles with a dreamy mist in her eyes.

This life with Azula will be perfect, because she made Azula better and changed and redeemed and now it is finally time for their happily ever after.

"You probably can't leave the Fire Nation," Zuko says, rubbing the back of his neck. "I definitely can't make that happen no matter what I do."

Azula sits in front of him, her lips pursed and her eyes expectant. She looks on the verge of negotiation, and while Zuko may have become a talented negotiator in years past, he does not want to get into that with her. She just toys with the ink brush in her slightly stained hands.

The ink is a reddish color, and it looks like fresh blood against her ivory skin.

"I don't need to leave the Fire Nation. I don't even want to leave home," Azula replies and her voice is needlessly cold and bitter. "I'm doing this because apparently she wants to leave the luxury of the palace..."

"And go to the luxury of some distant presumably royal property?" Zuko narrows his eyes but quickly snaps back to a serious expression when she looks up at him. This is essentially a political negotiation, even if it is with his little sister. "Why does she want to leave so much anyway?"

Azula shrugs, rolls her eyes, too many dismissive movements. Zuko wishes he were a better analyst of others, because he does think there is something less than positive about her reaction. Azula is not one to make any sacrifices for others, and he doubts she feels as if she owes Ty Lee for everything Ty Lee has done for her over the years.

He thinks she has some ulterior motive; he just has no idea exactly what. He tries not to care, because he knows that it's a given and he knows that he should just avoid those sorts of things he has no desire to know about her.

Is that wrong? Is that evasive? Is that permissive? Probably all three of those things.

Does she play into his guilt far too often? Does her pretty face hide an evil mind?

Yes. Both of those things.

"I'll take it to be reviewed," Zuko says, in spite of all of that knowledge. "Is it ready?"

He looks at the perfect characters, and her less than perfect signature. Strange mixture, but he is not sure why. She hands him the parchment and lets him walk away.

Azula does not know that the beginning of the end is sparked by that one signed and stamped piece of paper.