Azula never liked to make anything easy, not when she could possibly make it hard.

Ty Lee knew that. One couldn't be friends with Azula and not know that. (Friends or whatever they were, really; Ty Lee thought that names were too complicated, and certainly never asked about them.) Another thing one had to know to be friends with Azula was that you could give everything you had, and Azula wouldn't even notice. What was Ty Lee's everything, after all, to the everything of a girl like Azula?

Ty Lee knew all of that.

She still bent over backward (literally) to please Azula, knowing that she would never get anything back, and sometimes she would get a cold shoulder for her trouble, or a remark so biting and hateful that Ty Lee couldn't speak.

"Why do you stay with her?" Mai asked, often, her voice as disinterested as ever, but Ty Lee could read the concern in her eyes. "She'll drain you dry if you let her, Ty."

"I know," Ty Lee said, and Mai just shook her head and got up and left.

Ty Lee knew she couldn't explain to Mai.

Couldn't explain the way she felt when Azula let her in, even the little that she did; couldn't explain the way it felt when Azula bothered to let Ty Lee talk and listened, smiling, to her little secrets; couldn't explain the way it felt when Ty Lee was jealous of someone and Azula tore them down for her in just a few vicious words.

"You're better than they are," Azula said, her voice like silk as she stroked Ty Lee's cheek. "Just not as good as me."

No, Mai wouldn't understand that (any more than Azula would) and she wouldn't understand this.

Azula lounged on the bed, sucking absently on the stem of a cherry, her golden eyes on Ty Lee standing by the door. Azula lifted one leg and pointed with her toe. "You came in through the wrong door," she said, casually. "You're hopeless, Ty Lee, I don't know why I bother at all. But since you're here…come and let down my hair for me. I don't feel like moving."

Ty Lee flinched and padded over, pulled the ceremonial headpiece carefully free of Azula's hair, and set it aside. "Can I stay with you tonight?" she whispered. Azula seemed to consider.

"I suppose I might find a use for you." Azula's hand snapped up, seized Ty Lee's jaw. "But don't think I won't make you work for the privilege," she added, and her lips brushed over Ty Lee's with the taste of a pomegranate, before she shoved Ty Lee away.

Ty Lee breathed out in relief as Azula swung her legs down and stood up with the grace of a deadly hunter; standing poised as she turned her head to examine Ty Lee where she stood. Her golden eyes raked over and down, and her lips quirked.

"Ty Lee, why do you wear those ridiculous clothes even here? They don't match, and you hardly look like Fire Nation."

Ty Lee hugged her clothes, her expression a little plaintive. "They're my circus clothes."

"And is this a circus? No? I didn't think so." Azula smiled her barbed, knife-sharp smile. "Take them off."

She felt suddenly self conscious, as Azula sat back down on the bed, crossing her legs and folding her hands on her knees, but twisted around and began to wriggle out of her clothes, feeling her cheeks turn pink as she dropped her clothes to the floor, resisting the urge to cross her arms and cover herself.

"Very good," Azula murmured, and a small, wicked smile curved her perfect doll's mouth. "Now come here and kneel like a good subject."

Ty Lee obeyed, and Azula tilted her chin back, her gold eyes half closed as her smile broadened. "You're really quite plain, Ty Lee," Azula murmured, and her fingernails began to dig into Ty Lee's jawline. "Your features are not particularly special."

"Not like you," Ty Lee whispered, tears welling up in her eyes as Azula's fingernails pressed deeper into her flesh, biting like teeth or cat's claws. "I'm not nearly as beautiful as you, Princess Azula."

She smiled, and Ty Lee caught her breath. Azula leaned down and placed her lips just over Ty Lee's, and whispered, "That's why you're so perfect for me, Ty Lee," and then bit Ty Lee's lower lip and kissed her.

Azula's kisses hurt as much as Azula's love hurt, but Ty Lee didn't mind, because it was better than nothing. And when Azula let her slip her hands into her silky black hair, sometimes, Ty Lee almost glowed.

When Azula pulled back, Ty Lee could taste the blood from her lip, but Azula was flushed and that made it all worth it. Azula pushed Ty Lee's hands down and took her head, guiding it down. "You know what I want," Azula's voice purred. "Don't you…Ty Lee?"

"Yes, Azula," Ty Lee breathed, and set her hands on Azula's perfectly smooth thighs, slid her hands gently up and along them, and glanced up to see her back arch as Azula turned her face up to the ceiling with a sigh.

Mai wouldn't understand this, either. Could not possibly understand how it made Ty Lee feel when Azula quivered with a soft noise like a whine as Ty Lee's lips brushed against the soft folds of her sex.

"Do you do this for those boys who flock around you?" Azula asked, her voice husky as her fingers and nails kneaded and raked along Ty Lee's shoulders. "I'm the only one, aren't I? They're just all substitutes. They can't give you what I can."

Ty Lee slipped her tongue out and probed deeper, letting the tip curl around the little hard nub just forward of her slit, and Azula's nails dug in hard, stabbing into her skin. "More," the princess breathed, and Ty Lee almost whimpered.

Take and take and take and-

The skin under her tongue tasted salty. Azula's body smelled like musk, heady and thick. Ty Lee closed her lips over the little bud of flesh and sucked.

Give.

Azula let her climb onto the bed and stroked her hair with one hand, the other rubbing gently between her legs until Ty Lee whimpered, her skin flushed and hot, and whispered, "You did well, Ty Lee. You please me, like no one else."

And Ty Lee closed her eyes and glowed, because to Azula that meant nothing, but to Ty Lee it was everything, and that was the reason she always came back.