Title: Shades of Gray
Rating: R
Paring: Zuko/Katara, Zuko/Ty Lee, Sokka/Ty Lee, Sokka/Suki
She always believed in black and white. There were no shades of gray in her life, no gradations of good and evil; there was no inbetween for Ty Lee. She knew that Azula was evil, as surely as she knew that she, herself, was not. Still, she followed her, for what else could she do? She was on the wrong side of a line drawn in the sand almost a hundred years before she was born and there was nothing else to be said, really. There was right, and there was wrong, and she was on the side of wrong.
After the war, she was lucky enough to find forgiveness for her crimes among the enemy. The Kyoshi Warriors had taken her in, given her a family after her own rejected her. No matter how much time she spent with her new ‘sisters’, her home would always be the Fire Nation. And it was on one such trip home that the window shade in her mind, the one that kept her world in black and white, began to slip – just a little, but enough to let her see some of the things she had missed in her life.
Each visit followed something of a pattern. She would visit Azula – not that the princess knew she was there, of course, but Ty Lee couldn’t simply abandon her, no matter how evil she was. Then she would visit Mai. These visits were harder. Unlike Azula, Mai was lucid, alert, if apathetic. Her eyes were more lifeless than Azula’s, which at least burned with the fire of insanity. Mai sat, silent, all but dead. She’d returned to the Fire Nation upon her release from prison to stand by Zuko, the way she’d gotten herself into prison in the first place. Until she’d seen Azula and what their betrayal had done to her. Her aura had gone from dingy gray to dark, muddy blue and she’d retreated into herself.
Ty Lee had believed Mai when she’d told Azula that she loved Zuko more than she feared her; what neither she nor Mai had guessed was that she’d loved Azula more than she’d feared her, as well. Seeing Azula, a broken shell of what she had been – Mai hadn’t been able to handle it. Mai saw the world in vivid color; something Ty Lee often envied. In Mai’s world, there was not only gray, there was blue and pink and vivid, vibrant red. It was not black and white in Mai’s world. There were differences between good and evil, those gradations Ty Lee could not see existed in abundance for Mai. Those colors – they made it impossible for Mai to continue to live her life as she always had.
She’d always envied Mai’s ability to see the world in color and so she hated these visits. They brought into sharp relief the difference between her and most other people. She should be as lifeless as Mai, she knew. She was just as responsible for Azula’s mental state as Mai, if not more so. Mai had betrayed Azula because she loved Zuko; Ty Lee had betrayed Azula because she thought Azula was evil.
She always felt a sense of guilt when she left; guilt at not being more like Mai – guilt for being so relieved at leaving – guilt at being more excited to see her new friends than her old. And that was where she was going, of course. Her third and final stop was the Palace. There was a room decorated in pink from top to bottom, from the carpets to the silken bed hangings, that was reserved for her. There would be rice dusted in fire flakes for breakfast, long walks around the gardens with Katara, and there might even be a small chance of a private ride on Appa with Sokka.
With her new friends, she never had to ponder the grays of the world, let alone the colors. They saw things in the same way she did. There was no gray in the palace, no blue or pink or red. It was simple. And while she saw the world in black and white, at the palace that wasn’t a bad thing, because life in the palace was black and white. Until one day, about four years after the end of the war.
Ty Lee had done her duty visits, and she was finally free to visit the palace, where she was greeted by enthusiastic hugs from her friends, a stark contrast to the ravings and silence she’d encountered on her other rounds. And there he was. Sokka. Suki never came to the reuinions. She said it was morbid and depressing to spend so much time hashing over events from the past. For Ty Lee, it meant an entire week of guilt-free time with Sokka. There was something freeing about being able to spend time with him. Toph laughed, Aang smiled, Katara and Zuko shook their heads in amusement, but these visits back to the Fire Nation were her time to spend with Sokka.
She should have known, from the beginning, that something was wrong on that trip. Suki had been more vehement than ever that she wasn’t going to go. Sokka hadn’t been to Kyoshi in over a year. He was busy at the South Pole, he claimed, and couldn’t get away. Suki had gone to visit him, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Ty Lee often wondered if Suki’s aversion to joining the others stemmed more from a resentment that no matter how infrequently Sokka made it to Kyoshi he always managed to find time to visit the Fire Nation, but she dared not put the thoughts into words.
It was three days into her visit that she noticed the tension – it should have been obvious from the start. Katara and Zuko were avoiding one another, and Toph had explained, sotto voice, that they’d gotten into a nasty argument several weeks before and had stopped speaking. Sokka spent his time with his sister and Aang, leaving Ty Lee and Toph stuck in the middle of what was rapidly becoming a full-scale war inside the palace.
While her selfish side argued that she should spend as much time with Sokka as she could, she knew that it was the wrong thing to do. Whatever the cause of the argument, her loyalties would have to remain, as always, with the Fire Nation, and that included the Fire Lord. It was only right, no matter how much she wished it otherwise, and for the first time in many years, she found herself in a familiar position, one she’d never hoped to be put into again, on the wrong side of a line drawn in the sand, with loyalty, duty and right on one side, and heart, feelings and wrong on the other.
It shouldn’t have surprised her to wake one morning and find that Aang, Katara and Sokka had flown away in the night. It shouldn’t have surprised her to see Zuko so broken. That she was surprised, even confused by the turn of events was the catalyst for a slight raising of the window shade of her mind. It fluttered open, and the world was thrown into a new color, one she’d never seen before – a perfect, clear gray, unmuddied by wavering loyalties and unaffected by her own internal moral compass.
When her week was up and Toph had left, Zuko seemed to fall into an even deeper despair, and she knew that no matter how much she wanted to escape that first shade of gray in her life, she couldn’t leave. She sent a messenger hawk to Kyoshi telling Suki not to expect her any time soon, and set about righting the wrongs in her life. And she intended to start with Zuko.
They passed nearly a week in absolute silence before a letter arrived at the palace – a notice that the circus was coming and wished to perform for the Royal Family as they had in days gone past. Zuko shrugged when it came and the notice fluttered to the floor, forgotten, but Ty Lee picked it up. It was just what Zuko needed, but not at the palace. No, he needed to leave the palace, where the memories of the past were lingering around every corner, and Katara’s image haunted every room.
The next day, at breakfast, she implemented her plan.
“Zuko,” she said quietly, relieved that he at least had acknowledged her voice by looking up. She’d been half-afraid that he wouldn’t even hear her. “I think it’s time you got out of here for a day. You can’t sit around brooding all the time.” He shrugged, but she wasn’t going to give up so easily.
“Then it’s settled. Go change into something less formal and I’ll see you in ten minutes,” she ordered, her voice unnaturally harsh. His eyes widened slightly, but he stood and left the room, nodding. Ty Lee breathed a sigh of relief at his apparent compliance and hurried to her own rooms, slipping out of the ceremonial robes she had learned to love during her time on Kyoshi and pulling on an outfit far older and more familiar. The pink, midriff-baring top felt alien after so long, as did the short pants, but the cool breeze flowing through the palace from the ocean felt good on her skin. She smiled and rushed down to the family wing of the palace, stopping outside the slightly ajar door of the Fire Lord and sighed as she peeked into the crack.
Zuko was standing in front of his wardrobe, formal robes still firmly in place. As she watched in silence, he deftly unclasped the ankle-length tunic and slid it off, revealing the black pants and boots he wore underneath. As she watched the muscles play across his back, the shade in her mind shuddered a bit before sliding up a little more.
And so she watched, curiously, as he slipped on an old, short tunic and belted it firmly at the waist before reaching up to take his hair out of the traditional topknot. It fell silently around his face, brushing his cheeks and sliding into his eyes, forcing her to stop and really acknowledge him for the first time in what seemed like years. And the shade slid up a little more.
“Where are we going?” he asked some time later as they walked through the streets of the Capitol City.
“There!” she exclaimed, pointing at a brilliantly red silk tent in front of them.
“The circus?” he said, turning towards her, his good eyebrow raised in confusion. She nodded calmly, but inwardly she was smiling, dancing – he’d reacted!
“Not just any circus,” she explained as they got in line, “My circus.”
Before he could comment, another voice squealed her name and she spun to see an old friend from the days when her aura was still pink, Ling Su. Ling Su wrapped her in a warm, welcoming hug and started chattering to her, darting curious looks towards Zuko.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” the acrobat exclaimed excitedly. “Everyone’s missed you so much, Ty Lee! Who’s your friend?” Ty Lee turned to Zuko for guidance – she wasn’t positive he had even heard Ling Su, or that he wanted her to know who he was.
“Lee,” he said, flipping the hood on his cloak up to shield his face from her stares. Ling Su stared for long moments before she finally spoke again.
“Well, Lee, you have to let her perform tonight. It’ll be the best show we’ve ever done if we have her back, and maybe, once he hears about how amazing she is, the Fire Lord will let us perform for him!” Ling Su was babbling and Ty Lee caught Zuko’s barely disguised snort. She looked at him sternly, wanting to remind him that if he wanted to go undercover, he’d have to do a better job than this, but he was actually smiling. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled – he certainly hadn’t done it since Katara left.
“I agree, Ty Lee,” he said, breaking into Ling Su’s continuing chatter. “If you perform tonight, perhaps the Fire Lord will let your circus perform at the palace.” She raised her eyebrows. Was he really challenging her? She ducked her head, taking a peek up through his hood and saw the glimmer of amusement in his eyes; she understood. He was punishing her for bringing him out here in the first place – or he thought he was. He couldn’t possibly know how much she missed the circus. And if she did go up there, he would invite her friends to come to the palace. The shade in her mind flicked open a little more, and she saw something that was neither black, nor white, nor gray; it could almost be blue, a calm, tranquil blue infused so heavily with white as to be almost indiscernable to someone who hadn’t longed her whole life to see the colors that others did. She smiled, tucking the image in her memory for when the shade fell back down, lovingly locking the moment in her mind for when the adventure was over and the world reverted to black and white.
“If Lee really thinks so,” she said to Ling Su, “then I guess I have no choice.” Ling Su squealed and pulled them over to the side of the tent, where a small trailer was set up for the performers.
“We haven’t changed your dressing area since you left, hoping we’d be able to find you and convince you to come back!” she exclaimed, pointing to a mirror in the corner. Ty Lee smiled happily. There was her gold headband and her paints, the ones that turned her face from plain to spectacular. She did a quick inventory – yes, all the shades she needed where still there. “I’ll leave you to get ready, Ty Lee. When you’re done, you and Lee can come out and we’ll get him seated.”
Zuko was silent as she sat down, settling the familiar weight of the gold headband over her hair. She smiled at the sensation, the weight of the gold pressing softly into her head bringing back memories of happier times. When she had been free – free of her family, free of Azula, free of any responsibilities. When the world was still black and white and she didn’t care. Zuko pulled his hood down and looked around as she pulled out the pot of white paint and a small brush, preparing to paint her face. She dipped the soft-bristled brush into the pot and began to smooth it over her skin. When her entire face was white, she pulled out a smaller pot of red and another brush and dabbed the paint over her eyes, her hands working from memory. Zuko picked up random items from the tables around hers, their eyes meeting in the mirror every so often in the silence. When they did, both smiled and Ty Lee ignored the shutter in her mind as it inched open, revealing pastels of every shade.
Finally she was finished, the full makeup of a Kyoshi Warrior somehow blending seamlessly into the attire of the circus performer, the two halves of Ty Lee meeting to become one. Zuko looked up and whistled softly. “You look nice,” he whispered. Ty Lee’s eyes widened as he leaned towards her, something unfamiliar in his eyes – not unwelcome, exactly, but certainly unexpected: raw male appreciation. A knock on the door startled them both, and they leapt apart, Zuko pulling his hood up immediately while Ty Lee felt suddenly grateful for the concealing white paint that effectively hid the blush on her cheeks.
“Are you ready?” Ling Su called. Ty Lee looked at Zuko questioningly, but his hood was covering his eyes once more, and she knew she would find no answers in the red cloak. She walked to the door and opened it, smiling at Ling Su’s startled reaction.
“They’re going to love you!” she exclaimed after the initial shock wore off. “It’s so completely different.” Ty Lee smiled happily and waved to the ringmaster, who was standing behind Ling Su.
“I’ve got the best seat in the house reserved for your friend, Ty Lee,” he said happily. “The minute we put the old posters up, people started flocking towards the tent. It’s going to be a full house tonight, and it’s all thanks to you!” A flutter of unease went through her. Zuko in the audience? Surely he could just wait in the wings for her? He nixed that idea however.
“I’d be honored,” he told the ringmaster, and the two men walked away.
“Your boyfriend has a very sexy voice, Ty Lee,” Ling Su giggled. “Why is he wearing that cloak, though? I can’t see his face at all!” The other girl pouted a bit at this and Ty Lee started to laugh.
“Well, he likes to be mysterious,” she said cheekily. “Let’s go!”
Ten minutes later she was standing on the platform next to the highwire, waiting for her turn to perform. She barely heard the ringmaster’s enthusiastic introduction of her. Zuko was sitting in the first row, directly below her on the highwire, and he’d tilted his head back to watch her the minute she appeared. Her routine was flawless, her years with the Kyoshi Warriors keeping her limber and agile. She even incorporated a few of their fighting stances into it, and they drew gasps from the audience. When she flipped from the highwire to the platform, Zuko was looking up at her smiling, applauding louder than anyone else. She smiled brightly before taking her bow.
When she reached the ground, she was startled to see Zuko still standing, his hands reaching for the edges of his hood. The audience, wondering what their favorite was staring so intently at, swiveled their heads to look at him as well, and he grasped the hood and pulled it down, revealing his scarred face. A murmur went through the audience, which quickly became a roar as his identity was passed from mouth to mouth. And then they stood and bowed, kneeling in the space between the seats to show their homage to the Fire Lord. Realizing that she was the only one still standing, Ty Lee dropped quickly to her knees and offered her respects as well, and Zuko’s voice rang out through the now silent tent.
“It is my honor to be here to see my old friend Ty Lee of Kyoshi perform,” he said. “And while we must, unfortunately, be leaving now, I would like to extend an invitation to the performers to appear at the palace tomorrow to perform, followed by a grand celebration in their honor.”
Suddenly the entire tent was on its feet, applauding him and Ling Su was pushing Ty Lee towards Zuko. He leapt over the wall that divided the audience from the ring and pulled her under his arm, pulling his hood up with the other and dragging her, laughing, out of the tent, through the city and finally inside the palace, where they collapsed into laughter.
Ty Lee looked at Zuko, and nearly gasped as he fell silent, the look in his was so intense, something far, far more powerful than the one he’d given her in the trailer. She knew he was going to kiss her, and she suddenly realized that she was okay with that – more than okay with it – she wanted him to. For the first time since she realized that Mai had a crush on him, back when she was just seven, she allowed herself to really see Zuko, to acknowledge that he was attractive, and that she wanted to kiss him. Somehow they’d ended up on the floor next to one another, and she didn’t remember how, didn’t remember falling to the ground in her laughter, and it didn’t matter. He was leaning over her slowly, giving her time to push him off if she wanted, but resistance was the furthest thing from her mind at that moment. Her eyes were locked with the brilliantly glowing gold of his as his face lowered and he brushed his lips to hers.
Ty Lee let herself enjoy the feeling of his lips touching hers, her eyes drifting shut as her mouth opened to allow him greater access, and he deepened the kiss. As his tongue joined hers in a dance older than Agni, the window shade in her mind flew open wholly, and the world burst into brilliant, remarkable color. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer and he groaned and draped his legs on either side of her hips, straddling her as his hands reached up and tugged the gold headband from her hair, and pulled impatiently at the ribbons tied her braid. When he finished, her hair was spread across the cold marble floor of the palace and Zuko was running his fingers through it, tugging slightly, kissing her until she was forced to break apart for air.
She reached up, lightly brushing her right hand against his scar and he put his hand over hers, holding it there. She explored the disfiguring mark with her fingers, memorizing the texture, like softly dried wax, and he watched her face carefully. She put everything she was feeling into her eyes, her excitement, her admiration, her lust and he dropped his hand.
“I can’t give you fairy tales, Ty Lee,” he whispered hoarsely. “I can’t promise you happily ever after.”
“I know,” she answered, her eyes never leaving his. He nodded.
“All I can give you is this,” he continued, gesturing towards their position on the floor. His eyes were tortured as they waited for her response, and she suddenly cursed the colors that allowed her to see the pain, the uncertainty.
“I know,” she repeated. “I’m not asking for anything else, Zuko.” He let out a breath, so warm that it brought a flush to her cheeks. “Well, maybe one thing…” she said, a teasing note in her voice. He looked at her, holding his breath again as he waited for her to continue.
“A bed?” she said, and he threw back his head, laughing.
“That I can do,” he said, his smile brilliant. He stood and scooped her into his arms, carrying her down the hall, leaving her ribbons and headband scattered in the entrance of the palace like little question marks. Ty Lee pushed the colors aside as she snuggled into his chest, ignoring the consequences for just this one night, throwing caution to the wind with black and white and simply giving herself over to the moment.
Ty Lee was still relieved when they reached the doors to her room, and not his. No matter how she tried to brush aside the nagging feeling that what was happening was wrong, she knew that she would not be able to do that if she had to see the rooms that he’d shared so happily with Katara for so many years. As he kicked the door open and then closed behind them and crossed the room towards the bed, she pushed black and white aside again and slid down his body, shaking her hair down around her shoulders, reveling in the feel of it, loose and free as it brushed her waist. He caught it in his hands, wrapping it around his fingers for a moment before he released it and reached for the hem of the pink shirt. She raised her hands over her head and he pulled it off. She lowered her trembling hands to the belt that held his tunic closed and tugged, loosing the fabric, slipping the halves apart to reveal the pale musculature of his chest. The silky red fabric slid to the floor, pooling at his feet.
~*~
When she awoke the next morning, a heavy weight on her arm and a delicious soreness between her legs were all the proof she needed to know that the events of the night before had not been a dream. And when she opened her eyes, she saw the world in brilliant color.
She also heard shouts from the hallway as Su Lin, her chambermaid, opened the door. “Good Morning Lady Ty Lee,” the tiny woman said cheerfully, walking into her chamber and preparing a bath for her mistress – as she did every morning. “There’s a big to-do in the servant’s quarters this morning – apparently the Fire Lord is missing.”
Ty Lee looked down at the head resting on her arm to see Zuko’s eyes opened, mischief glowing in them. He was biting his bottom lip in an effort to keep from laughing and Ty Lee had to stifle her giggles. “Not only that,” Su Lin continued confidentially, “but it seems that Master Katara returned this morning as well, and she’s looking for him, too.” Suddenly, she didn’t feel so much like laughing anymore. Zuko didn’t look amused, either. She looked down at him questioningly and he nodded.
“Su Lin,” Ty Lee ordered from the closed curtains of her bed, “I won’t be needing that bath this morning. You are dismissed. Please send word to the kitchens that I will be down for breakfast immediately.”
“Yes, Lady Ty Lee,” the maid said. The door closed behind her with a soft click and Zuko turned his eyes up towards her.
“I’m sorry, Ty Lee,” he began, but she touched a finger to his lips and shook her head.
“No promises, Zuko,” she reminded him. “I knew – I’ve known the entire time.” He nodded and smiled, pressing a kiss to the pad of her finger before she took it away.
“It doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry if it hurts you,” he said.
“You’d better get out of here, Fire Lord,” she teased. “I’ll go distract Katara at breakfast so you can sneak in. She might suspect you of a night at the finest Fire Nation brothels, but I doubt she’ll ever guess where you really were.”
~*~
Katara looked up, startled to see Ty Lee in the family dining room. “Ty Lee!” she exclaimed happily, jumping to hug the other girl. “No one told me you were still here!”
“Someone had to keep him from falling apart,” Ty Lee said, wincing at the bitterness in her own voice. Katara sucked in a breath quickly and sat back down. “Sorry – that was uncalled for. It isn’t my place.”
“No, you’re right – actually – I’m glad you were here for him,” Katara said quickly. “I had to get away from him – from all of it – for a little while so I could get my thoughts sorted.”
“Katara, no offense, but I don’t need your reasons – I don’t need to know the details, or anything else,” she interrupted. “I’m going home soon and it’s up to you to work things out with Zuko.” Katara nodded.
“You’ve changed, Ty Lee,” she said. “I don’t know exactly how – but it’s in your voice.” She took a breath and continued. “Are you going back to Kyoshi?” Ty Lee nodded.
“Why?” she asked, noting Katara’s distressed look.
“You might want to wait a bit,” Katara warned her. “Sokka and Suki split up and apparently Suki’s not taking it so well. If you want to get away from the Fire Nation for a bit, why don’t you go down to the South Pole? Go visit Sokka – he could use a friend.” Ty Lee looked up quickly – was Katara implying what she seemed to be?
“Katara?” she asked, wondering if it were an imposter.
“Ty Lee, let’s be frank with one another, okay?” Katara said quietly. “No one tells me you’re still here, Zuko can’t be found, and suddenly you’re downstairs in the family dining room? I’m not stupid, Perky.” Ty Lee felt her jaw drop. “Don’t look so surprised, Ty Lee. I’m not stupid and I meant what I said – I’m glad you were there for him.”
Later that day, Ty Lee stood on the rail of a Fire Navy ship headed towards the Southern Water Tribe with supplies for trade, waving good-bye to the Fire Lord and his consort, the world shining in more colors than she could recognize, more than she could name. After breakfast, she’d said her final goodbye to Azula and Mai; the colors didn’t break her. She would not go crazy; she would not drown in her own bitterness – but she would never be able to see the world in black and white again.
