There is a garden full of dangerous things in her mind. Amid the choking vines and the flowers wearing poison like a perfume, Ty Lee places Azula and Mai one-by-one, carefully into their shallow graves.

"Stay, stay," Mai croaks. It's a wonder she can speak with no tongue, but then again, Mai always did amazing things. The specks of dried blood flake on her cut lips. With each exhale, they are airborne.

"I can't," Ty Lee says. When Ty Lee tries to gently pry Azula's hand from her own pink and healthy wrist, Azula's charred flesh peels and, oozing pus and blood, comes off into Ty Lee's hand. Frowning, she snaps the brittle bone in Azula's wrist. The other girl shrieks and withers like a bloom left in the sun too long, withdrawing her arm to cradle it against her chest.

"I can't stay," Ty Lee repeats. She looks from one girl to the other; her best friends, her very best friends. "I have to live." --with a dagger pointed at the world's throat

Weary and wary, hunched and guarding her throat and abdomen like they possess all the treasures in the world, Ty Lee kneels beside the twin graves, and she gathers the moist dirt with both of her hands and pushes it over the edge. Mai moans unhappily and then, again, louder, when more and more dirt falls over the side.

Careful of flying knives, Ty Lee pokes her head over the side of the grave. "Mai, what's wrong?"

"You're getting my clothes dirty," Mai spits at her. There's dirt on her cheeks.

"Oh. Sorry. You can buy new ones um... in the afterlife, I'm sure." Ty Lee tries to think of a way to bury someone with out getting them dirty. If she had a coffin, that might work. But she doesn't have one.

"Whatever," Mai sighs out and pulls a face. The fleshy, red cuts on her cheeks split open but do not bleed anymore.

Ty Lee continues her good work. Soon there is dirt caked into the fabric of her shirt and pants, under her fingernails, stuck to her knees, in her cute bellybutton. She shakes her head and dirt falls out of her ears. And still she is not done; still she cannot put the dead to rest.

She stands and looks down at Mai. Ty Lee shouts, "Why can't I bury you? Why isn't this working?" She points to the dirt pile at the side of the grave, as if accusing it.

Mai grins at her, and Ty Lee can see the dirt sticking to her white, white teeth, showing through the cracks like bits of chewed black cake. There is a ring of dirt around Mai's mouth, sticky with saliva and blood.

"Stop that!" Ty Lee cries. "I'm trying to bury you! Stop eating all the dirt!"

Azula's blackened flesh comes into view as she lurches up the side of her grave. Ty Lee dodges the first strike, poorly executed by the arm with the broken wrist. But she cannot manage to move out of the way of the kick Azula aims for her stomach.

Ty Lee hits the bottom of Azula's grave with a thump and whoosh as all the air in her lungs quickly leaves. Her limbs snap out, uncontrolled, and then she is clawing at the sides of the grave, trying to get out, get out, get out. Mai tackles her, using her weight to push Ty Lee to the ground. Ty Lee claws and hits and bites; she accidentally pushes her hand through one of the many puncture wounds on Mai's chest and when she quickly withdraws it from the cold cavern, it is covered in old, dark clotted blood and bits of torn flesh.

She is screaming and screaming and screaming. And somewhere above Mai's grinning face, somewhere out of sight, Azula is laughing her crazy, dangerous laugh as she throws handful after handful of dirt onto Ty Lee's grave.

--

You hate green and brown. They are the colors that stupid people wear and of mud. You are not stupid or mud.

--

You hate Zuko because he was weak when it mattered. You hate yourself for surviving when Azula was so much more than you.

--

You are young again, in your dreams, and everything is bright. You see your mother and your father, waiting far ahead. You run, you catch up; you take a hand from each into yours.

They smile at you; you smile back. They lift you between them and you are swinging back and forth. You are always in motion.

Everything is okay.

--

You know. You know? You know everyone you love is dead.

--

You always wake up.