<div class="floatright">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/e/eb/Pheonix_queen_azula.jpg)</div>Perhaps they weren't the attribute that had drawn Azula to her, but ever since they were girls Azula had always been fond of Ty Lee's breasts.  Fond, and perhaps, a little jealous.  She adored her wife's body, in general... the way the muscles pressed beneath her skin like a form under silk sheets.  And the way her joints seemed to bend both ways.  But especially the soft shape of her breasts and the candy color of her nipple peaking out at her.<br/><br/>That was what love was, Azula had realized long ago.  Finding the person who had all the features she wished she possessed...<br/><br/>Then possessing that person.<br/><br/>She rose to her feet slowly, stretching herself so that the robe fell open and revealed every defined line of her muscle tone.  Her smaller breasts pointing firm nipples skyward as she arched her back and stood on her toes like a dancer.  As the muscles relaxed, lightning tingled down the outside of her skin making what little hair there was on her body stand on end, and her flesh covered in goose bumps.  She took a deep breath and let her robe fall as she released a long exhale that came out like a wash of flame and smoke that fell over her and flooded the throne room.<br/><br/>Then an explosion of blue flame as her naked form came launched in a backflip over her lover, smiling at her as time seemed to slow down.  She landed like a crash of lightning and grabbed at Ty Lee's wrists, "I suppose it's only sporting I give you a head start," she purred the words, the pale blue smoke and azure sparks still rolling from her lips as she spoke.<br/><br/>Already her hand was snaking under Ty Lee's robe, however, staticky fingers running over the smoothness of her wife's stomach.  Little bursts and sparks of lightning bending that she jolted into individual muscles to make them tighten or relax, like somewhere between a tickle and a sit-up.<br/><br/>Her hand was just about to get below Ty Lee's navel when a voice interrupted her.<br/><br/>"My Queen..."<br/><br/>"By the spirits!" she groaned, "What is it now?!" there was a burst of flame out from her that looked like the wings of a great bird and flashed through the entire room too fast to actually burn anything.<br/><br/>It was one of the Dai Li, the stone mask concealing his eyes and obscuring the world to him in honor of their mistress.  The Queen didn't like anyone looking upon her body too long without invitation, and so the Dai Li made for optimal private guards in her palace.  She could place them in places where she wouldn't trust the eyes of a Fire Nation guard, or the Water Benders - most having spent an extended training at Lake Lao Gai - she had guarding the Harbor and outer gates of the Palace.  Besides, Azula liked the Dai Li more than she favored most of the peasantry.  They were quiet and patient without being passive.  Ruthless and efficient without being overly aggressive.  They were ideal tools... like their mistress.<br/><br/>"The Avatar..."<br/><br/>"So I've heard," Azula said, letting Ty Lee see her roll her eyes as her hand moved a little lower towards Ty Lee's pubic region.  "Whatever would I do without such urgent delivery of old news...?" she purred and pressed her lips against Ty Lee's ear.<br/><br/>"He's here, my Queen."<br/><br/>Her hand had just cupped over Ty Lee's crotch when he'd said that, and likely Ty Lee might have been the only person more stunned by the words than Azula had been.  "Here?"  She'd been planning on sending out fleets in search of him.  She'd already been working on remembering how to contact the bounty hunter, June, in the back of her mind.  And... he'd just come to her?<br/><br/>Of course he'd have the audacity to arrive unannounced.  Honestly, like being the connection between two realms and the conduit of elemental harmony somehow excused him from proper etiquette.<br/><br/>"Have Lady Katara and Lady Yue sent to the throne room at once!" she growled the orders as she pulled her hand and body away from her wife.  Azula snapped back into "Queen Mode" frustratingly easily, and Ty Lee might have noticed the look in her eye that suggested gears were already turning inside her head.<br/><br/>"Send in our girls," Azula called, "My wife and I must be properly dressed before the Avatar.  Where's Mei?  What use is my royal diplomat if not for this exact purpose?!" she was already pre-emptively wrestling with her thick long hair, "Where the hell is my crown?"<br/><br/>She was frantic but in absolute control as she dictated where everyone would be positioned when the Avatar arrived in the Throne Room.  The triangular shaped "Table of the World" would be placed at the foot of the throne pointing towards Azula, with Ty Lee at her right in her Silver Queen's gown... and Mei at Azula's right in her finest formal wear.  Yue and Kuei would be brought in and sat at the narrowest point of the triangle on opposite sides... closest to Azula.  They would have to risk moving Katara in the rain, Azula didn't like the chances but the Avatar was forcing her hand by having come here.  Katara would sit opposite Jet at the furthest end of the table... closest to where the Avatar would be brought into the room.<br/><br/>She was thankful now that the "Table of the World" had always been marked on one end with the symbol for the Air Nomads.  She could claim it had been a symbolic gesture, and in a way it was.  Having the symbol there and arranging the table how it was forced both the former Water Tribe and former Earth Kingdom representatives to look outward at what could happen to those who opposed the will of the Phoenix Queen.  She'd never had to say a word, the reminder was there constantly.  But now she already had everything in place to say to the Avatar that his people had never been forgotten... that the Phoenix Queen, she smirked at the name itself, was all about the restoration of the world... seeing it reborn from the ashes left by mad men like her great grandfather and her brother.<br/><br/>"... and we shall have a contingiency of our most trusted guards," she was speaking only to Ty Lee, now, everyone else having been sent on their respective tasks to get things ready.  "The Dai Li will be closest to us, then the Water Benders... then our Fire Benders on the outside, closest to the door.  It'll represent..." she waved her hand in the air and sighed, making it difficult for the slave girl to continue dressing her, "Harmony or retrospection or... something."<br/><br/>"All I need you to do, my precious," she smiled at Ty Lee.  It was the smile she only ever let Ty Lee see. "Just stay close and be beautiful," she said blowing a kiss into the air that fluttered outward as a soft flame that touched Ty Lee's cheek just warm enough to feel like a wash of sunshine. "But don't flirt.  I want the Avatar to know that you're mine."<br/><br/>Meanwhile:<br/><br/>Perhaps surprising to the Avatar, it was Water Benders that met his approach first.  Dangerous enough as they might have been near the Palace's outer moat, the rain storm gave them plenty of additional power to work with.  But they didn't attack, simply took a defensive stance as a warning to what they viewed as a threat.  Nobody had seen a Sky Bison in over a hundred years, and nobody alive still remembered what one looked like.<br/><br/>Then the chambers burst from the ground behind him like cannon fire.  Stone cylinders that each opened to release an Earth Bender and a Fire Bender, each.  The Capital City Response Force always worked in pairs.  Though trained by the Dai Li, these benders weren't titled as such, and were allowed to keep their sight... though they were never taught the higher levels of Earth and Metal Bending.  Within moments, the Avatar was surrounded by men from every nation but his own...<br/><br/>And then Admiral Zhao.  "Well," he said under his breath, "This is easily the fastest quest I've ever been sent on..." he put on his most charming smile and approached yet another member of the spirit world he'd have to lie to.<br/><br/>"The Avatar, I presume?" he bowed low and with respect.