This stupid little story I started writing because the premise seemed interesting suddenly has a personal significance in my life, so there's that. Let's see where we can go with it. I really fucked up the timeline here so watch me pull a retcon.

For over six months Azula didn't bother to learn the name of Ty Lee's fiancé. She got into the habit of putting herself on autopilot whenever he came up in conversation anyway and she had never even met the man so she could at least pretend he didn't exist when she was alone with Ty Lee, as infrequently as that happened. Mai or Zuko were almost always close by.

That never stopped her from thinking about her. Everywhere she went she found things that reminded her of the woman in pink, whether it was a palace servant wearing her hair in a braid or a poster advertising a circus.

Azula had a stack of papers in one hand and a half-eaten apple in the other when she left the library, and nearly jumped when she glanced down the hall and saw a young man walking slowly in her direction. He wasn't a servant and the briefcase under his arm suggested he was in the palace on business.

"Excuse me," he said politely as he approached, "I'm looking for the Fire Lord's office. Can you tell me where that is?"

She jerked her head in the opposite direction down the hall. "I'm going there now." The man nodded and they set off.

"Thank you. I was so excited to meet him I never thought to figure out where to find him."

"Don't feel bad, he doesn't have a reputation for visitor convenience."

As much as Azula liked living in the palace and having all of her needs (well, almost) immediately met at any given moment she wasn't big on bumping into random strangers at weird hours in her pajamas. In exchange for convenience she'd traded privacy.

"This place is so big," the stranger said. "If I lived here I'd get lost all the time."

"Mmhm," Azula replied, completely unable to relate. "If you lived here long enough you'd be able to get around blindfolded."

The man laughed. His laugh was soft and disarming. Azula wondered why he was here.

Just then a door swung open in the hall ahead of them and Zuko slipped out, surreptitiously stuffing half a fruit pastry into his mouth. Azula stopped and Zuko looked the other direction down the hallway, noticing the pair.

"Your Esteemed Fire Lord," Azula stated with a sarcastically regal gesture and bow. Zuko's eyes went wide and he quickly brushed crumbs off his shirt while struggling to swallow the pastry. The stranger dipped his head in respect.

"Mmmmfffm. I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting anyone this early." He bowed quickly. "You must be Mak."

Mak replied to Zuko's bow with a deeper bow of his own. "That's right your Highness. It's an honor to just be in your palace."

"I've been reading your work and I'm excited to be meeting with you. Oh, congratulations on your engagement by the way, my wife and I were just talking about it."

Wow, thank you." Mak went a deep red color and Azula wondered how much longer she would have to endure this before she could leave. "Well, I'm pretty excited as well. Both for my engagement and to be working with you." Azula just rolled her eyes.

For the first time in this interaction Zuko looked directly at Azula. "I hope my sister didn't bite. She doesn't have a reputation for hospitality." Mak spun to face her so quickly his hair jiggled.

"Wait, you're Princess Azula?" he said in a mix of surprise and awe.

Azula stepped back with a hand on her hip. "Couldn't you tell?"

He bowed again. "I'm so sorry Princess, I didn't recognize you. I only know you by reputation." Azula just frowned. "Ty Lee talks about you a lot. I'm surprised I haven't met you already." Azula's mind raced to figure out how they all knew each other. Her stomach began to sink.

"You two haven't met?" Zuko asked, already a million miles away from Azula's mind. Time around her seemed to stop. She searched Mak's face for any kind of flaw, and found that he was simultaneously absolutely stunningly handsome and hideously grotesque. Everything from his durable hairline to his impractical smile clashed in Azula's brain and she blinked once.

She saw the blood running from his nose and mouth where her knuckles collided with his face. She blinked once. She smelled burnt hair with her hands on either side of his head. She blinked once. She felt her thumbs force their way into his eyeballs as the clear fluid inside them boiled away off his face. She blinked once. She hear Zuko screaming her name, pulling her off and dodging her erratic fireballs. She blinked once.

"It- it's nice to meet you," she stammered, watching the grin spread across his face.

"Yeah, it really is. You know Ty was just saying she wanted to introduce us. I love meeting her friends, she knows so many interesting people." Mak turned so he was no longer facing Zuko, who looked back and forth between the two of them as though he were hoping for an opportunity to slip away.

"That, uh, sure sounds like Ty. Lee." Azula took several unconscious steps back.

"She took me to a place she likes to go with you to, out in the north quadrant. We should talk about going for lunch sometime, just the three of us."

The restaurant in question was a little hole in the wall Azula and Ty Lee ducked into to escape a rainstorm a year and a half ago, just weeks after their vacation on Ember Island. Azula didn't care for the food but Ty Lee seemed to enjoy it, going so far as to finish Azula's bowl then insist on personally complimenting the chef. Ever since then Azula had never eaten there alone but the name came up whenever they were out on the town and Azula wanted to see Ty Lee happy, which was literally every minute she was awake. On hearing it referenced by this man, this disgusting loser with exquisite taste in women, Azula saw the building burning to the ground. The chef was crushed under a ceiling joist supporting the weight of the three stories above it. He spent six minutes under the rubble struggling before he died. His last words, spoken to nobody in particular, were to his daughter. Nobody heard them and they died with him.

"The thing is I'm actually out of town that day. Zuko, what were you saying about Mak's work? It sounded interesting."

"Oh. Uh, well, Mak has been compiling some data on the last few elec

Azula stopped pretending to pay attention the moment Mak looked towards Zuko. She stalked off down the hallway as fast as she could casually walk as Zuko trailed off behind her before turning his attention to Mak. A prickly heat flushed Azula's skin and she pulled her hair out of its bun and fought with her clothing to dispel the sensation but it wasn't leaving her.

Tears burned in her eyes and she dropped the apple and the stack of papers to the ground, ignoring the mess they made.

Outside the tiny room the worst blizzard Republic city has ever seen rages fiercely. Inside the tiny room Azula sits on the edge of her bed, staring into the darkness and listening to the wind pound on her window. A sudden gust slams into it with a loud Whump and the figure in bed behind her stirs from his sleep.

"Was that you?" he mumbles after a second.

"The storm," Azula says quietly, not turning around. The man behind her groans and shifts under the covers, struggling to pull them over himself.

"Aren't you cold? I'm freezing."

"I don't mind."

He sighs, apparently resigning his struggle. "I wouldn't have stayed if I knew you were going to leave the heat off."

"The heat is on, I just like to leave it low. And you're more than welcome to go home if you want to brave the storm."

A second passes and there's another sigh. He doesn't move after that. Azula rolls her eyes.

"Thanks for letting me stay, I guess."

"It's the least I could do."

They fall quiet again, and the storm continues outside. Azula considers turning up the heat but she dismisses the thought after she thinks of her gas bill.

"Did the storm wake you up?" The man says a minute later.

"No, I was just... thinking about things. I couldn't sleep."

"Oh no. Was I that bad?" Azula doesn't answer verbally, she just lets out a sharp sigh in frustration. "Okay, sorry. What are you thinking about?"

"What do you even care?" she snaps.

There's a rustling sound from the man where Azula assumes he's shrugging under the covers. "I don't know, I'm just curious. Usually whenever I sleep with someone we talk a little bit afterwards."

Azula pauses to consider the pros and cons of honesty. "I was thinking about a person."

"Mh-hmm. Good things or bad things?"

"It's... complicated," she manages to mumble.

There's another vague sound of agreement. "Sometimes it is. Someone you dated?"

"...Not exactly."

"Someone you wanted to date."

"...I guess. It might have been love. I'm not even sure anymore. I don't think I knew what it was at the time."

"Was it someone you knew in the Fire Nation?" the man asks, drawing on his vague awareness of Azula's past that she'd mentioned on the few times they'd spoken about those things.

"Yes. An old friend, and then I made things weird."

"It must have meant a lot to you if you're still thinking about it years later. It's three right? Since you moved here?"

Azula nods. "Yeah. And yeah, I think it meant a lot to me. Even if it didn't mean as much to her."

A silence passes over, as they both think about it. Then, "Wait, her?"

Azula nods again, but she realizes he probably can't see her head in the darkness so she decides that a heavy silence will answer his question for him.

"I uh... huh. I thought that sort of thing was illegal in the Fire Nation. Or is that why you left?"

"I never cared. Everyone knew that the Purity of Life laws were garbage anyway. Just a way to keep soldiers on the battlefield and workers in the factories."

"...I see."

"And no. I left because I couldn't stand being around her when every time I looked in her eyes it broke my heart. She was married, and after a while I couldn't delude myself into thinking we could work something out anymore."

The man doesn't even bother making a committal sound, he's too involved in Azula's story to interrupt.

"So I ran. And I've tried so hard not to look back but... I think about her so much, still, after all these years." She turns her head halfway towards the man behind her. "Is it really that hard to move on from somebody?"

"I, uh... oh man. I think all I can say is that yes, it can be that hard to move on from someone. Maybe you'll meet someone else and you won't think about her so much. Or, maybe you'll get so caught up in doing your own things that you won't have time to think about her."

"I thought I was making progress last year. I saw something about her in the newspaper and it just triggered all these thoughts and feelings. I wanted to move on then." Azula squeezes her arms as she talks, both from the cold and the anxiety. "I crossed the planet to get her out of my life. Now I just want to get her out of my heart."

Neither of them has anything to follow that up. They sit in uncomfortable silence for a while, listening to the storm. It's just as hard now as it was when they went to bed.

"Sorry," Azula says suddenly, shaking her head furiously. "You didn't come over to hear me complain about my life."

The man shrugs. "I already did what I came over here to do. Anything else is just getting to know you."

Azula rolls her eyes and swings her legs off the ground, trying to get herself back into the bed. "I'm tired."

"Me too." He lifts the blankets for her and she settles in. He scoots closer to her until she freezes in confusion. "Can we cuddle?" he asks.

"Cuddle? I suppose you're going to try and take me out for a date tomorrow."

"Come on, it's cold and you're warm. Please?" Azula searches the air for his face and even though she doesn't find it she relents, turning onto her side and pulling herself into his arms.

The night passes and they fall asleep together warmly while the blizzard rages outside.

A bit of a double feature tonight. I started writing this story based off an idea that came to me when I half-read and misunderstood a summary of a completely different story posted here, and suddenly within the last few months it has a deeper personal meaning to me. All I'll say is that it was really easy for me to write as Azula in this one. Thanks for reading.