Azula knocked over the girl she had been chasing for the past 10 minutes. She was on her back on the floor and in one swift move, she turned her around, got on her knees with a pointed gun at the brown-haired … teenager. She was a teenager. Must've been 17. If not less. While she examined the body underneath her, Azula’s hands dropped slowly. But once she noticed her movements she lifted it back up to her temple. The fire nation princess - as her girlfriend called her (she thought it dumb but let it go very quickly) - looked into her eyes in search of something to get ahold of. Some anger or disgust of the woman on top of her. Something to give Azula the tiniest motive to shoot. All she found was the clear sleep deprivation she was put through and exhaustment. In more ways than one. If she was being honest, Azula saw more of herself in the kid than she’d like to admit. What made her crack was the hint of relief that the poor girl had knowing it would soon be over. No more war. No more problems.
Azula let the weapon down for good this time and got up. The confusion on the younger one’s face didn’t go unnoticed.
“You should go.”
“Thank you.”
“I said,” she tried to sound threatening by adding an unnecessary pause but ended up just sounding tired. "you should go. If the others find you they won't be so indulgent. Trust me.”
“Can I at least know your name?” the adolescent bluntly asked, not paying attention to the previous threat.
“No.”
“I’m Rachel”
“And it won’t matter if you’re dead. Now, please. Please go.” Azula wondered if she sounded as desperate as she was. They didn’t have time for this nonsense. If her troupes caught up on them it would be over.
Rachel got up helped by Azula who was trying to speed the process in any way possible.
“I’ll just have to call you blue then.”
The older black-haired woman frowned, not understanding the nickname. She tilted her head in the direction of her forearm so that she could understand better. Her tattoo. The one she’d gotten with Ty Lee. It was a pink lotus with a gymnastic ring surrounding it. All of that in collision with blue fire and lighting. At first, she was skeptical about getting a matching tattoo but on second (or more) (definitely more) thoughts she agreed. The gymnast was before everything her best friend and she knew no matter what happened it would stay that way. When Azula looked up, Rachel was gone. She had heard a little something but was too deep in her memories and contemplating her tattoo for the millionth time this week that she didn’t pay attention to the noise - a rare thing given her current (forced) line of work. Only a few seconds after starting to watch the silhouette run away in the horizon of the morning daylight, a loud “bang” was hear followed by the shadow of the newly freed young woman collapsing on the ground. Realization hit. She started crying. And shouting…
***
"No!"
Azula woke up sweating, hot tears rolling down her cheeks, hands shaking, and pulse running wild. Ty Lee startled awake as quickly as her fiancee. She knew what had happened. It was always the same dream following Azula's mission months ago. Ever since then, the acrobat only slept with one eye open like mothers did with their newborn. On alert.
“Hey, hey,” she said with a voice as soft as the hand she had put on the veteran’s back, starting small rocking movements. “I’m here. And so are you. We’re in Ba Sing Se, in our bed, in our apartment. You’re not in Omashu. You’re okay. I got you… I got you.”
Ty Lee slightly lightened up as she found something she knew would win her a smile.
“My little blue fire”
She won. Azula chuckled, her tears lighter. She felt better each second next to her wife to be.
“Why “blue fire”? I never got it. After so many years and a tattoo you’d think I'd know, wouldn’t you?”
Ty Lee sighed happily still holding on to the love of her life.
“Well… Aren’t blue stars hotter?”
This time Azula full-on laughed. She’d miss hermuch. She would never leave Ty Lee's side again.