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The best part of their sleepovers happened after everyone in the Palace had ostensibly gone to bed (save the night shift of guards and servants, though they didn't count). After annoying, nosy older brothers, after demanding parents, after Fire Lord Azulon himself was asleep, that was always the best part of their sleepovers. After Ursa had done the cursory check to make sure her daughter and Ty Lee were sound asleep (followed by the stifled giggles because their possum-chicken act had worked), after most of the braziers and torches had been extinguished for the night, after the usually bustling Royal Palace had finally settled into its more subdued (and pleasant) nighttime self. That was the best part of when Ty Lee slept over, because they were finally free to sneak out of bed quietly and get up to whatever trouble they wished.
Tonight they were going to sneak out to the gardens to watch a meteor shower. They giggled to themselves as Azula checked the hallway. The coast was clear, as expected, and they crept through the hallways as silently as possible for two seven year old girls who were absolutely up to something far past their bedtime. They made it to the garden successfully, having attracted attention from nobody but the guards, who they ignored, as usual (and who ignored them in turn), and burst into the warm summer air which was cooled only slightly by the late hour. Now they were free to speak, as long as they didn't talk above a whisper.
“Oh, the gardens are so pretty at night!” Ty Lee exclaimed quietly. She was breathing in the air perfumed by summer flowers. Night insects chirped away in the bushes, and the turtle-duck pond was empty, its inhabitants having taken shelter in their enclosure for the night. The stars sparkled brilliantly off its still surface, reflecting the glory of the star-encrusted heavens above.
“Yeah,” Azula agreed just as quietly. “It's way nicer out here at night.”
Ty Lee grabbed her hand briefly, giving it a quick squeeze. “Thank you so much for showing me! This is the best idea we've had for sure!”
Then Ty Lee dropped her hand again, which annoyed Azula for some reason. Taking it back up, she yanked the other girl along through the garden. “C'mon! The best place to see the stars from is over here!”
If Ty Lee was bothered by Azula's rough treatment, she didn't show it. Instead she let herself be dragged over to a spot of soft grass, slightly damp with dew, in the middle of the garden. The two girls flopped down, and Azula motioned to the stars above them with one arm.
“You can pretty much see the whole sky from here!” she said.
It was true. And the moonless and nearly cloudless night was revealing more and more stars as their eyes grew adjusted to the darkness. A faint haze of light stretched from horizon to horizon, and a few firefly-beetles blinked above them.
“I saw one!” Ty Lee cried out, excited, as a blazing meteor streaked across a fifth of the sky. Then she clamped her hand over her mouth, aware of how loud she'd been.
“Shhhhhh!” Azula commanded. “You're going to get us into trouble!”
“Sorry!” Ty Lee said.
“It's alright,” Azula replied. “Look, there's way more already! I've counted five!” She pointed back at the heavens.
“Don't forget to make a wish,” Ty Lee reminded her. “But don't tell!”
“We can make a million wishes tonight,” Azula said, and both girls lapsed into silence for a bit, enjoying the show.
Presently, though, Ty Lee started to wiggle around uncomfortably. It was distracting.
“What's wrong?” Azula asked her.
“The dew is soaking through my nightgown. I'm all wet!” she complained.
“Me too,” Azula said, suddenly noticing. “But you don't want to go back inside, do you? I'm having a lot of fun.”
“No,” said Ty Lee. “But I can't stop thinking about it.”
“Hmmm.” Azula cast around for an idea. “What if we played a game?”
“What kind of game?” Ty Lee asked her.
“A constellation game. See, that group of stars there,” Azula pointed, indicating the direction, “looks like a fire lily.”
“Oh!” Ty Lee seemed to think for a moment. “And that group there,” she pointed in turn, “looks like a boar-q-pine!”
Azula squinted in the darkness. “Yes, I see it,” she agreed. “And over there, in the north, a messenger hawk!”
The two girls set to naming their own constellations, stories in the sky only they could see. After a while, Ty Lee yawned, then Azula, and they lapsed into companionable silence, watching the heavens wheel slowly above them.
Finally, Ty Lee broke the silence. “Azula, are you still awake?”
“Yeah,” Azula answered with a yawn. “What's up?”
“Do you ever think about boys?”
“Boys?” Azula asked incredulously, her face scrunching up in distaste. “Ew. No. Why would I think about boys? You mean like my brother?”
Ty Lee giggled. “No, not like Zuko!” Azula could hear the eye roll in Ty Lee's voice, which made her angry.
“Well, what do you mean then?” Azula asked with an edge.
“I mean like grown-up boys. When we're grown up,” Ty Lee explained.
Ew. No. Azula hadn’t considered boys and being a grown-up at all. Whenever she pictured her future, it was always her and Ty Lee and Mai, friends forever. And maybe Zuzu, if he could ever stop being such a dum-dum (unlikely). But she merely said, “No. Why?”
“Well…” Ty Lee said with hesitation. “Someday we'll have to grow up and get married, right?”
“...Sure,” Azula agreed reluctantly. She supposed that would have to happen. Father or Grandfather marrying her to secure some alliance among the nobles, maybe. An appalling thought. Definitely best not to dwell on it.
“Well, so we'll have to know how to kiss boys then. Doesn't that worry you?”
It did, now that Ty Lee had brought it up. She wasn't sure she wanted to kiss a boy, maybe not ever. “Is this the kind of stuff you talk about with your sisters?” Azula asked, attempting to change the subject.
“Sometimes,” Ty Lee replied. “Some of them really want to kiss boys…” she trailed off.
“But not you?” Azula asked, strangely interested.
“Well… what if I’m bad at it?” Azula could hear her chewing on her lower lip, something she did when she was worried.
Bad at kissing? Azula thought. Somehow this was a more horrifying prospect than kissing at all. What if she had to kiss someone, someday, and she was bad at it?! Unthinkable. She caught herself chewing on her own lower lip, and stopped abruptly.
“Well… we just won't be bad at it,” Azula supplied. There had to be some way, after all, to ensure this.
“But how?” Ty Lee practically wailed, still in whispers.
“Let me think…” Azula reassured her. There was an answer here. Then it came to her. How else did anyone improve at anything? How else was she a better Firebender at seven than her brother had been, by far? How else was she way better than he was now, and him two years older? Practice, of course. She relayed this line of thinking to Ty Lee.
“Okay, but practice with who?” Ty Lee replied. “We go to an all-girls school, and anyway, I don't want to practice with a stinky boy!”
“Practice with me, of course,” Azula said confidently. “It's the perfect answer. That way, when we have to kiss boys, we'll both be the best at it.”
“I dunno,” Ty Lee said reluctantly. “Aren't girls only supposed to kiss boys?”
“Sure, when it's for real.” Azula explained. “But practice doesn't count.”
“Oh, true I guess!” Ty Lee said, in a brighter tone than she had been using for the last few minutes of conversation. “So, do you want to practice right now?”
Azula was grateful for the darkness of the night, because suddenly her face was burning for some reason. Also she felt funny, in places, at the thought. But surely what she had said was true. A kiss only counted between a boy and a girl. So there couldn't be anything wrong with it, any reason not to. “Sure,” she said, but made no motion towards Ty Lee.
So Ty Lee sat up and scootched closer to Azula instead. She leaned down, and their chests touched. Then their lips touched. Azula could barely breathe for some reason, but she pressed her lips back to her best friend's in response. Well, this was okay. More than okay, actually. In fact, she felt like whenever she watched Grandfather make lightning, the air crackling with electricity, except inside her for some reason. Was it supposed to feel this way? But…
Azula jerked her head away suddenly.
“What's wrong?” Ty Lee asked, concerned. “I'm sorry if I'm not good. I've never kissed anyone before…” She trailed off, sounding disappointed.
“Are you sure? Because… you're pretty good already,” Azula answered.
“Just my parents and sisters, and they definitely don't count,” Ty Lee said. Then she cocked her head to one side. “Are you sure you haven’t kissed anyone? Because you were pretty good at it, too.”
Azula felt flustered, which was an unusual feeling for her, and one she decided she abhored. She decided to answer with sarcasm to hide it. “Who do you imagine I'm kissing? Zuzu?” She made a face to indicate how disgusting this idea was. She was rewarded with a giggle from Ty Lee.
“I sure hope not,” Ty Lee said between giggles. “He's so annoying and dumb!”
Azula was happy to hear Ty Lee put Zuko down. He was annoying. And dumb. She couldn't understand Mai’s interest in him at all. But there was no accounting for love, was there? And they were definitely fun to tease.
She sat up with a smile. “I bet we can get Zuko to kiss Mai!”
Ty Lee giggled, then stifled a yawn. “I bet they're already kissing!”
Ew. Not something Azula wanted to picture. She yawned in response to Ty Lee's yawn. How late was it?
“Are you getting tired?” she asked Ty Lee.
“... Yeah. Kind of. I think it's super late. Or early.”
Maybe they had better put all the talk of kissing aside and get to bed before they were found outside her room, then. Azula stood up and offered her hand to Ty Lee, who took it gratefully and stood as well.
“I'm still all wet…”
“I have different nightgowns back in my room. We can change, and you can borrow one of mine. Hopefully they'll be dry by morning. We can say we were playing dress-up.”
“Good idea, Azula,” Ty Lee praised, and they began to sneak back to bed, not realizing they were still holding hands. The night had been a great success, proving once again that the best things happened after everyone else was asleep.