Angels walk among us, wearing crooked halos and shattered wings, grounded eternally, no longer able to taste the clouds. Mermaids walk among us, feeling water dry on shivering skin and biting back tears that taste of the salt of the sea. Gods walk among us, pressing their hands against metal walls and remembering when they crushed stone beneath their livid fists.

Demons walk among us, watching fires rage and burn without being able to touch, remember what it was like to have lightning in their hearts and flames bursting from their lips as their tongues waxed lyrical of beauty and battle cries.

A demon in the shape of a runaway heiress, with tired eyes and chapped lips and the endless desire for scorching warmth blanketing her on this sweltering summer day stood in a cheap apartment that smells of mildew and rot.

Her Persephone sat eating stale Froot Loops with vodka instead of milk.

"I'm ride or die for you," said the stripper to the runaway heiress, the Persephone to the embodiment of Hel herself.

Azula had only just woken from another dream about fire. Fire and lightning that she could control. Yet, it was some sort of nightmare because she always woke up a mess. She dreamed of it erupting from her fingertips and consuming the people she loved.

She loved fire. Loved it so much that she played with it as a child, both literally and figuratively. And now, with the woman in front of her, she had a fire within driving her to drive their relationship forward.

"I gotta go," whispered Ty Lee, kissing Azula on the cheek.

It burned a fiery scar into her skin.

Azula exhaled a soft, content sigh.

Azula and Ty Lee stood in the lobby of a strip club, Azula eyeing everything distastefully, Ty Lee fidgeting with her coat.

Suddenly, Ty Lee looked very happy and stated sweetly, "You know the thing I love most about my job?"

Azula scoffed slightly. "Showing off the benefits of yoga and pilates? Oh, no, not that. Stripper glitter?"

"The neon signs." Ty Lee smiled and closed her eyes for a moment, lingering in the purple glow like a cat basking in the sun.

"Well," Azula said, tearing her eyes from the blinking 'nude girls' sign, "You love everything. Signs, leaves, rabbits—"

"Oh! I love bunnies so much!" Ty Lee beamed.

"I must admit I find the aesthetic of neon signs pleasing." Azula hesitated as a flash surged through her mind. "It makes me feel like I have lightning in my veins."

And as she dragged her fingertips over the sign, she could swear it reminded her of directing the flow of lightning itself.

But that would be madness, and Azula was not crazy. Not crazy. Not crazy. Not crazy. No matter what Zuko and Iroh believed.

She closed her eyes and breathed in lightning, as if she were made of storm cells.

Then she heard a loud, overly sexual song play and she was torn from where she knew she belonged. She belonged at the core of a thunderstorm, not waiting for her fiancée to get settled at her job where she stripped for strange men.

Azula was meant to burn down the world with flames she could only imagine as blue. So hot that they were blue.

But instead she carried out hits for the gang that took care of her when she ran away.

Tonight it was a drive by.

Lightning flashed in the sky as she and her crew drove fast, fast away.

As Azula heard the thunder crash, she felt like she was home.

But then it faded and the only things left were the heat of the gun in her hand and the sound of the car pushing ninety-nine.

In the hazy morning, Azula scratched at the teardrop tattoo on her ivory skin and watched Ty Lee chewing lower lip. It was simple and small, in the middle of a breakfast consisting of cheap black coffee, pricey grey cigarettes, and mahogany burnt toast.

"What are you doing that requires such intense thought?" inquired Azula.

Ty Lee smiled faintly. "Reading about Tony the Tiger."

"I didn't know you could read," Azula teased, sitting down across from her love.

Ty Lee giggled. Azula's mind slipped elsewhere. She stood atop a rock, Ty Lee waded in water in pale pink outfit. She laughed like wind chimes but bit her lip and averted her eyes when Azula looked at her. Azula removed the crown from her hair and stepped down from her perch.

Azula opened her eyes and saw the real woman in front of her eating frosted flakes.

Maybe Azula would never understand the vividness of her accidental, uncontrollable daydreams. Moments like real memories, glazed over by eons of time.

"I love it hen you look at me like that," happily chirped Ty Lee.

"Like what?"

"Like you're trying to memorize me?"

Truly, Azula looked at her like she was trying to remember her, not memorize her. She contemplated telling Ty Lee that but it would make her sound crazy and she had spent enough time im mental hospitals to satisfy her for the rest of her life.

Azula finished her coffee and stared at the cloudy bottom of the mug.

"Princess?" asked a soft voice. Ty Lee.

Azula looked up from the murky tidepool and stood, sand crumbling down from her red summer clothes.

"Yes?"

"Uh, why… why are you looking at me like that?"

"I wasn't looking at you." Azula huffed. "Fine. How was I looking at you."

"Like you're trying to memorize me."

Azula frowned and turned away. Ty Lee made a small choking noise.

When Azula looked up from her mug, she saw Ty Lee closing the box of frosted flakes and standing up to wash her dish in the old, cracked sink.

Maybe she was crazy.

Azula reached into her purse and popped a Xanax.

"Are we still going hiking, princess?" Ty Lee chirped.

Azula just gave a nod as she swallowed the tiny blue pill.

Adrenaline surged through Azula's veins. She ran up the hill beside her fiancée. The competitiveness in her bubbled to the surface fiercely as she felt ready to shove Ty Lee down a rocky bluff if it meant she would win.

Ty Lee climbed; Azula leapt over the rocks like a parkour master. In the end, the latter reached the top first, laughing, shot of breath.

Grinning, Ty Lee grabbed onto Azula to steady herself, "King of the Hill," said Ty Lee blithely.

"Queen of the Hill, thank you very much." Azula kissed Ty Lee and the moment she closed her eyes she saw the ground swaying beneath her, heard people crying eagerly for a princess.

"Princess Azula, beautiful and clever," echoed a grandiose female voice.

Azula's lips parted, breaking free of the kiss, and the fragment of a daydream ended.

Every night, they stayed up late talking. Azula dominated the conversations as she dominated all things in life. Ty Lee just loved to listen to that silky purr. It took her back, gave her memories of a life she never lived, if that made sense.

"I do wonder why you lose your overly talkative self after sundown, Is your mouth solar powered?"

"I just love to listen to you. You're so smart and so confident! I love it about you. I love that about you."

"I know."

"If Hell is other people," said Ty Lee, "Heaven is you."

"I…" Azula wanted to tell Ty Lee she loved her but couldn't manage. "I agree with you."

Ty Lee smiled into her pillow. Azula closed her eyes and felt her lover beside her. She lay in warmer weather beneath ruby sheets.

"You need to go before my father hears us."

"I love you."

"Just leave. I have an eclipse to worry about. That's an order."

Azula opened her eyes. She heard the traffic of the highway instead of the insects singing. She lost that Hawaii feel and surrendered to the LA swelter.

Maybe she really was crazy.

Still crazy.

Azula loved few things outside of power trips, money and athletics, but she did love vintage vinyls. She lay one on the record player.

Looking around at the decrepit apartment, she thought for a moment about the mansion she abandoned. All for a girl. But that girl, that girl felt so familiar, so vibrant, like something she lost, a memory from a dream. Azula just knew she could not lose her (again).

"Dance with me," ordered Azula.

As you wish, princess." Ty Lee bowed teasingly.

Deja vu flickered in Azula's head before Ty Lee's hands pressing against hers snuffed out the flame of discomfort. They danced to the crackling dulcet tones of Julie London while the sun set over the smoggy city of Los Angeles.

Where angels and demons tread.

Ty Lee rested her head on Azula's shoulder.

"Your braid is tangled," Azula remarked.

"I'm not super good at braids."

"Then why do you wear one every day?"

Ty Lee briefly stepped dancing. She blinked a few times. Her lips parted, eyes glazed, as if deeply thinking, deeply in her own head. It unnerved Azula.

"I… I don't know. It just feels right." Ty Lee gave a nod and took a sharp breath.

"Do the men at your job like it?" bitterly inquired Azula, touching the teardrop tattoo on her cheek yet again.

"Maybe." Ty Lee resumed the dance. "Azula."

"Yes?"

"Why do we only dance to sad songs?" Ty Lee touched her own lips.

Azula thought for a moment before deciding, "Because ours is a sad love."

Ty Lee did not ask why Azula thought so.

But Azula knew. Azula knew, although their romance was perfect, it reeked of heartbreak and tragedy. Maybe that would never come true.

Yet, they still only danced to sad songs.

Later that night, Ty Lee poured an entire jar of sugar onto the large chipped bowl of raspberries. Azula watched frm the table where she sat cleaning her gun. It was her best friend most of the time, particularly in her line of work as a gangbanger.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Just curious, princess."

"It is… possible."

"It is, I think, and if you think, and you're the smartest person ever, then I think so too. I think I'd like to come back as a chameleon. Chameleons are cool."

"You hate blending in. You love attention so much that you would dance in the spotlight of a runaway train. So much that you take your clothes off just so people will look at you."

Ty Lee softly smiled. "Maybe that's why I think chameleons are cool. Because they don't need to be the center of attention to be happy."

Azula laughed coldly. "You're in an oddly deep mood."

"Raspberry?" offered Ty Lee. Azula nodded and so Ty Lee placed one in her fiancée's mouth.

Azula closed her eyes, the berry burst behind her teeth. She looked to her side and saw kneeling servants, the not her other side where Ty Lee lay snunggled up, basking in the lavish royal attention. She loved being served fruit by the slaves, being close to Azula too.

"Are you worried about the eclipse?"

"No. Of course not. It's practice for the comet. And you so encourage yourself by fantasticing about being Fire Lady."

Ty Lee beamed and blinked.

Azula opened her eyes in the same cheap apartment she left her lavish life with Ozai and Zuko and Iroh and Ursa for. She ran her fingers over the cold metal of her gun like a caress. But even her adolescent mansion could not compare to the vivid palace in her dreamas.

"I wonder about the afterlife too."

"But if Hell is other people," said Ty Lee yet again, kissing Azula with raspberry sweet lips, "My Heaven is you."

Azula closed her eyes and welcome the soft, brief emptiness.

END