Tanya looked around at the array of colourful tents with the pinched, ever-so-slightly sour expression of someone trying very, very hard not to judge someone else for their poor life choices.
"You know Azula…" She began slowly, shooting a quick glance over to her friend, and finding a small measure of relief in the fact that she wore a similar expression. "When you said that Ty Lee ran off to join the circus, I didn't think you meant it quite so literally."
A good friend was supposed to respect their friends' life choices and support them, no matter how ill-advised said life choices may be, and Tanya really did want to be a good friend to Ty Lee. Yet, to her shame, no matter how many times she told herself that.
"Yes, Ty Lee should do what she loves, " and "Of course, Ty Lee is a responsible young lady who has the right to make her own choices."
A large and very loud part of her wanted nothing more than to drag her wayward friend back home, place her under house arrest and have a long, long talk about acceptable career choices! Ty Lee was the daughter of a noble, and one of the closest friends of the heir to the throne.
She was also a master of chi blocking: one of the few martial arts capable of bridging the power gap between benders and non-benders, during a time period where The Fire Nation would bend over backwards for more soldiers capable of combating bending armies.
Opportunity had quite literally thrown itself at her feet! She could open a dojo, get paid a king's ransom to spend three hours a day teaching a select few students her moves, and buy her own private circus if she enjoyed it as a hobby so much! All it would take was a little more wisdom than her childhood friend seemed to possess.
Azula did not sigh in response, for it was not dignified for a princess to do so in public, but the flash of weariness across her gaze betrayed that they were thinking along the same wavelength. "Well, you know Ty. Any chance to set herself apart from her sisters, she'll snap up in a heartbeat." She shot her a snide glare. "It didn't help that you never once failed to mistake her sisters for her whenever we visited their house."
Tanya groaned in exasperation. Ty Lee's complex about standing out as an individual among her seven identical sisters was a cause of all sorts of headaches.
"She's not still upset about that is she? In my defence, they all have the exact same hairstyle, wear the exact same style of clothes, and act the exact same way as each other." She paused, then tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Except for that one who's kind of a bitch. Which one was that again?"
"Ty Woo."
"Yeah, that's the one. My point is, couldn't she have tried a new look or something before skipping straight to running away from home?"
Azula frowned sternly. "You would think so. After I heard that she'd gone, I asked myself why I hadn't spotted the warning signs earlier. I could have talked to her; reminded her that her place will always be by my side, and disabused her of these silly ideas before they could take root."
Tanya's eyes widened as the realisation struck her. Of course, how could she be so blind! A good friend would support you in your bad decisions, but a true friend was one who wasn't afraid to sit you down, talk to you, and help you realise when you were making a mistake, even if it wasn't what you wanted to hear. That Azula had realised such almost instinctively was just another sign of what an amazing friend she was.
"Do you think we'll be able to get her to see sense?" She asked, willing to follow Azula's lead when it came to deal with social matters.
Azula's reply was a sharp, predatory smirk. "Oh, don't you worry. I know just how to… enlighten… our old friend."
… Okay… because that didn't sound at all ominous. Azula really must have been spending too much time learning from her father in recent years. Did all Fire Lords teach their heirs how to speak like they were foreshadowing something? Before Tanya could ask for elaboration, Azula strode off with the unspoken expectation that she was to follow her.
It didn't take much searching before they spotted their target.
Her acrobatic friend had grown a little since she'd last seen her, but otherwise Ty Lee was just as she remembered her: radiating cheerful, energetic and unfailingly positive vibes like some kind of sunshine and rainbow styled lightbulb.
Her hair was still braided into the ponytail she and her sisters always wore, though she seemed to have switched up her old, more reserved, noble's clothes for the simpler apparel of a tightrope-walker; albeit with enough of the shirt cut away to expose her midriff.
"Ty Lee, could that possibly be you?" Azula called out, and Ty Lee's head shot around to look at them, splitting into a wide grin.
"Azula! Tanya!"
A spin and a flip later, and Tanya let out an "off" as Ty Lee crashed into them both with the force of an intercontinental missile. Oh right, how silly of her to forget how much of a hugger Ty was.
"It is so good to see you two!" Ty Lee gushed into their shoulders, before taking a step back.
"Please," Azula replied. "Don't let us interrupt your…" She raised a critical eyebrow at their surroundings. "Whatever it is you were doing."
Ty Lee, still smiling, fell casually back into a backflip that ended with her lying on her stomach; one foot hovering over her head, the other pointed up at the sky.
Tanya cleared her throat. "Listen, Ty, it really is good to see you again. Though I can't help but wonder at why we found you…" She too glanced around at the circus. "… here of all places."
"Indeed." Azula continued. "Certainly our parents didn't send us to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls to end up in places like this."
Nearby, a platypus bear let out a low groan and sat up, revealing that it had just laid an egg on the ground. Azula shot the dirty beast a quick look of disgust, while Ty Lee seemed happy for it.
Tanya, however, looked mildly alarmed, as she questioned who in their right minds was letting a pregnant bear wander around the camp unrestrained. That was a workplace hazard just waiting to happen.
"I have a proposition for you." Azula continued. "I'm hunting a traitor. You remember my cowardly brother, don't you?"
Ty Lee grinned at a memory. "Oh yeah. He was so sweet."
Tanya snorted. "He's grown up a little since those days. And not in good ways."
The corner of Azula's mouth curled upwards slightly. "We would be honoured if you would join me on my mission."
A complicated look; somewhere between distraught fear and flat-out panic, flashed across Ty's face for a second. "Oh-... I-... uh-... would love to…" She did not, by any stretch of the imagination, sound like she would love to, but it would have been in poor taste to call her out on it. "But the truth is, I'm really happy here. I mean, my aura has never been pinker!"
Tanya raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Pink means she's happy, Tanya." Azula translated.
"Oh, I see." She did not see at all, but she'd long resigned herself to the fact that she'd always have no idea what all the aura talk was supposed to mean.
"But Ty, surely you can appreciate how fortunate we were to study at the world's foremost school, when most people don't have the opportunity to get a formal education at all? I understand wanting to follow your passion, but surely there's a way to reconcile it with a more… economically beneficial profession?"
Ty Lee looked confused. "A what?"
"She means that you should get a real job." Azula translated.
"I wouldn't put it quite so bluntly." Tanya added hastily, shooting Azula a quick scowl at the flicker of hurt that crossed Ty Lee's face. "I just think that it's a waste to not use your education to aim for a position with a bit more financial security.
You know, theatre companies that target more elite audiences have been adopting elements of circus into their acts recently. You could be the leading lady of the Royal Opera House with our support. I'm sure you could even be running the place after a few years."
But Ty Lee didn't seem like she was considering Tanya's words. In fact, each one seemed to just make her more uncomfortable. "I-… I don't know Tanya, it's just not the same. I want to travel the world and have people cheer for me. It's about the joy, y'know? Money and status… that's just not me."
Not me? How could money not be for anyone? Fiscal wisdom was an essential skill for anyone living in a world of currency and trade! Money bought you food, shelter and all the other basic necessities of life! It was the chrysalis of human effort itself!
Even the most tortured artist sold their paintings to secure their next meal! Tanya was not suggesting that Ty Lee needed to be some money-grubbing fatcat, but if she could just get her head out of this teenage wanderlust phase, she'd surely come to see that-…
"We'll take your word for it." Azula suddenly cut in, interrupting Tanya's train of thought. "I wouldn't want you to give up the life you love just to please me."
"Thank you, Azula." Ty replied, respectfully bowing to the princess. At the same time Tanya looked at her like she'd just declared her intention to transform the Fire Nation into a hippie-communist state.
But Azula did not acknowledge Tanya's look of betrayal. Instead she smirked to herself. "Of course, before we leave, we're going to catch your show."
...
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