In life, the monsters won.
That's what Mai had learned when Firelord Ozai burnt the face of her only true friend, sending him off on an all but futile quest–never to be seen or heard from again for three long years. Tears burned her eyes when she heard, rolling down her cheeks until her eyes were red and raw with the sadness that grew inside her.
Everything will be fine, she used to tell herself. I'll survive.
Yet, both home and court seemed to conspire against her as they always had, molding her, crafting her into something else. Scornful stares and sharp words chipped away at her soft skin, turning clay into fragile porcelain which could break at any moment.
As she grew older, Azula's games changed as well–testing her, molding her, crafting her until Mai nothing more but another doll in her cabinet of puppets. Her parents too crafted her, and between princess and parents was made the perfect pawn for their little game.
Thus, she treaded carefully, shrouding her face with a blank veil and armoring her heart with stone. Why bother caring when everything could be so easily shattered?
At Omashu, she's ivory, her face betraying none of her thoughts as she glances over at her brother. She sighs. She doesn't care if her brother is in danger–or rather, that's what she tries to tell herself as Azula catches her attention with a wicked smirk.
Still, something deep within her stirs as she hears Zuko's name on Ty Lee's lips. She turns her head so Azula doesn't catch a glimpse her wide grin as tiny cracks appear on the rough stone that encases her heart.
Something burns inside her as she sits alongside Zuko–she stares into his soft gold eyes, and the stone armor of her heart cracks even more as another smile paints her lips in answer to the prince's affections. She noticed there's something there–something she hasn't allowed herself to feel for quite some time.
At the Boiling Rock, she's cold, hard steel like the knives that come flying out of her sleeves as he rushes to save the jerk who dumped her. Until this point, she has done everything she had to do to survive, but right now the only think on her mind is saving Zuko.
Only when she holds her knife in her hand and sees Azula prepare to strike her with her lightening does she show Azula her fear, eyes wide at the realization that she would almost certainly be dead had it not been for Ty Lee.
She's in prison now, her eyes meeting Azula's as she glares at her from the opposite side of her cell.
"Was it worth it?" Azula demands to know.
Their eyes meet, and she can see Azula trying to pierce through her with an angry glare, doing everything in her power to evoke some kind of reaction from her, but Mai won't let her.
She shrugs.