Disclaimer: Avatar: the last Airbender belongs to Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.
——————

-

Mai knew what school was going to be like long before she entered the Royal Academy's buildings.

When she had been very little, her mother had arranged for several friends to bring their daughters over, to play with each other while they did whatever boring thing moms did in groups. At first the girls had thought Mai was sad and tried to cheer her up; then they had gotten upset and asked why she couldn't smile; and then they had gone to play among themselves, excluding her.

Mai had watched the five little girls whispering and giggling to each other on the other side of the garden, and wondered why they thought she would want to be stupid with them.

Then she snuck off when the nanny was looking away, and ran away to the kitchen.
-

The cook didn't really like it when Mai appeared in the kitchen, but as long as she stayed against the wall that was on the opposite side of the room from the stove, she'd usually ignore her for half an hour or so before telling one of the servants about her. Mai would climb onto one of the stools and carefully wipe down the edge of the counter before propping her elbows on it and watching as the cook chopped vegetables and boned chickenquails or turtleducks.

The cook told a servant about her sooner if she caught Mai playing with the carving knives.

—

Most of the girls showed up on their first day at school with at least one servant with them, as something between a guardian for the walk to and from the academy and as a token of familiarity in a new place.

Azula arrived with three, one of whom was in full military uniform.

Class started late that day, and the teacher looked a little daunted when she entered the room after speaking with the officer; but none of them really understood how things were going to go until lunchtime.
-

When the weather wasn't too hot or too cool, they had lunch and recess in the large garden tucked between the two main buildings of the school. Mai ate under a tree in the far southwest corner.

Azula settled on a low wall in the sunny east side of the garden to eat, and didn't move after she'd finished. Several girls from the highest noble families had gathered on the ground (no one dared sit on the wall alongside her, even though they wouldn't find out that she could already firebend until next week) and tried to talk with her, but Azula just watched them without speaking. Eventually, the girls got nervous and murmured to themselves; and then they seemed to become afraid that she would consider that as snubbing her, because they stopped talking altogether. The most Azula deigned to communicate with them was to shake her head once when they asked if she wanted to play with them.
-

Azula never spoke to anyone, in fact, except for their teachers and a rare few girls who had some blood ties to the royal line. Outside of class, she sat on the wall and simply watched the rest of them, and everyone accepted the fact that she was the Fire Princess and that was how things were.

Mai was personally a little unnerved by the fact that Azula never squinted even when the sun was right in her eyes, and stayed under her tree on the other side of the garden.

Mai rarely spoke to anyone in her class either, but things went very different with her, since she was mortal. That certain girl-communication--turned backs, shoulders pressed against others that left no room for someone else, deliberate whispers--that she'd first learned about at her house was even more extensive here, and now there were notes.

Mai didn't care if the rest of her classmates didn't like her--the feeling was mutual--but the fact that they expected her to react to their petty, boring tactics and would increase them every time she didn't was . . . frustrating.

The day Mai figured out a back way to the open area behind the school, where the firebenders in the upper classes trained, she spent recess with the others just often enough that the teachers wouldn't notice her continual absences. When she found that one corner of the area was fenced with wood instead of metal (to force the firebenders to practice control, she eventually learned), she started going back to the kitchen in her home again.

—

Ty Lee was a bubbly, enthusiastic girl who had a trail of friends since the first day. Half the girls in their class had bruises or cuts from trying to imitate all the things she could do, and while the teachers chided her for not being more lady-like and not paying more attention to them, they mostly liked her. One day she sent all the teachers in the entire school, even the ones for the upper classes, running into the garden in a panic because she'd managed to climb all the way up a tree and onto the roof.

Mai hadn't seen that, because she'd been behind the school, practicing throwing the five small paring knives that she'd stolen from the kitchen at one of the fence posts.

The five turned to four that day, because when Ty Lee shouted "HI!" from somewhere above and behind her, Mai's throw went wild and the knife sailed over the fence and into the pavilion beyond.

"SORRY!" the voice shouted again, and Mai spun around.

"UP HERE."

Mai looked up, and her glare kind of devolved into a gape. Ty Lee waved from where she was standing on the edge of the roof.

Mai stared at her for a few more seconds, and then quickly turned back around.

She wrenched the knife that she'd already thrown from the post, and then ran back into the school, tucking it away with the other two. She hid all three in the box from her lunch, and then stayed in the bathroom until she could hear the teachers leading Ty Lee down the hall and scolding her loudly the whole way.
-

None of the teachers said anything to her for the rest of the day, which made Mai guess that Ty Lee either hadn't said anything about her being behind the school or hadn't been believed if she had. She made sure to glare at Ty Lee as they left the school that day anyway, to make sure.

Ty Lee just grinned back at her as her maid led her off, completely ignoring the way the woman was asking about the thin scroll she had been sent home with.

Mai decided then that she disliked Ty Lee the most of all her classmates.

She also made sure to spend the next two weeks in the garden with the other girls, just in case anyone was watching for her to sneak away.
-

The animosity lasted for about a month, because that was how long it took for one of the other girls to get jealous and start spreading rumors about Ty Lee. Lien even told some of them to Mai, about how Ty Lee's parents had really wanted a boy and that was why they let her be so horribly 'uncouth' and loud and full of herself, which was the first time they'd talked willingly since the beginning of school.

Mai didn't think Lien knew what uncouth meant any more than she did, but it certainly sounded bad.

The news got to Ty Lee the next day, and when she arrived at the classroom, she strode right up to where Lien was standing by the window with a group of other girls and said, "Are you the one that started talking bad about me?"

Lien looked shocked. "What are you talking about?"

Ty Lee punched her twice, once in the side near her spine and, when Lien screamed and started to pitch forward, once in the side of the throat. Lien made a choked noise and collapsed on the mats.

Ty Lee stuck her hands on her hips, and ignored the fact that all the other girls were shrieking. "Well, you're ugly!"

The teacher pulled her away then, and a few seconds later, Lien started bawling in earnest. The teacher leaned out the door and shouted down the hallway for someone to come help her; and eventually someone carried Lien away and the teacher dragged Ty Lee and several of the other girls out and the head of the academy's secretary came in to make sure they were all okay and behaving.

Class started very late that day. Neither Lien nor Ty Lee came back for the rest of the day; and Lien didn't come back for the remainder of the week at all.
-

Mai had wanted to talk to Ty Lee at lunch the next day, but on the way to the garden Azula claimed her first.

Mai settled under her usual tree and watched as Azula actually spoke to Ty Lee in-between bites. The girls that usually sat in a group on the ground near the princess had scooted away slightly when Ty Lee dropped onto the grass with an oddly graceful thump, but now they were trying to stare surreptitiously and hear what Azula was saying. Ty Lee was easy to hear.

What Ty Lee lost in popularity after that, she gained in prestige; so things didn't actually change much for her. No one was going to risk shunning the only girl the Fire Princess liked.

—

Mai had wanted to talk to Ty Lee because it was the first time she'd seen someone ignore all the stupid unspoken rules and dull, repetitious habits of the girl-communication stuff and demand a straight answer. And Ty Lee apparently hadn't tattled on her, because Mai could still get away with spending recess practicing her throwing--so maybe she wasn't all shallow and bad.

Plus, when Mai had gone through the anatomy book in their library the previous afternoon and then asked one of the servants, he'd given her a disturbed look but answered that yes, getting punched in the kidney hurt very much and could make a person feel terrible. Where did you hear about that, Lady Mai?
-

The third day after Azula had claimed Ty Lee, she changed where she sat at lunch. Instead of taking her usual seat on the wall, she settled under a tree across from Mai's, pulling Ty Lee with her. The noble girls who had already gathered around the wall like usual looked flustered at the sudden change, but adapted.

Azula smirked at Mai, just once, as she opened her lunch. Mai looked away.

There were only two more days until their break. Mai stayed where she was for the rest of lunch and recess that day, and then--when Azula and Ty Lee sat in the same place again the next day--sat on the opposite side of the tree.

Next week, Mai stopped going to the garden at all. She broke away from the group with her boxed lunch tucked under her arm by telling the teacher that she was going to the restroom, and then made her way behind the school.

She didn't know what Azula was doing, but she knew what would happen if she bothered going back to the tree to eat--the rest of the girls would have started claiming she was a copycat, never mind the fact that Mai had been sitting under that tree for the last month and Azula had only been doing it for three days, but no one was going to accuse the Fire Princess of imitating someone else. It just wasn't worth it.

The day after that, Mai skipped out on the garden completely once again, ate half her lunch, and then practiced her throwing. At first she was doing worse that usual, because everything was so stupid. She was going to be caught if she spent every day out here--the teacher would notice eventually if she never spent time in the garden, and she didn't know what Azula was doing, but . . . maybe it would blow over before she got caught. Or maybe she could find somewhere else to stay and practice. . . . Or maybe she could waste years in this school with these boring girls and never be able to do anything fun.

So stupid.

Mai threw one of the paring knives into the wooden post, and then concentrated on throwing the next one exactly an inch above it. The third landed an inch above that, and only a fraction to the left.

"Decent," someone said behind her.

Mai spun around, the last knife gripped between her first and middle fingers. She managed to keep from drawing her arm back reflexively, however, because she recognized the voice sheerly from how rarely she'd heard it.

Mai was a little creeped out to see that Azula was in a firebending stance. Behind her, Ty Lee was standing by the door, stretching her arms over her head. She waved a hand.

"But not perfect," Azula continued.

". . . Is there anything you would like from me, Princess Azula?" Mai asked, trying to remember the way she'd been told to speak to the royal family. She flipped the paring knife back around so that it was against her palm, and then tucked it into her skirt.

"Maybe," Azula replied, tilting her head to the side and shifting out of her stance. "What's it going to take to make you better?"

Mai blinked at her.

Azula's eyes narrowed slightly when she didn't speak for a few seconds, so Mai straightened her shoulders. "More practice," she answered.

Azula smirked slightly.

And then she pulled a folded sheet of paper from her outer shirt and held it out. Mai took it, glancing from the paper back to Azula.

Rather than explaining anything, however, the princess turned around and left. She shut the door behind her when Ty Lee started to follow, so the other girl shrugged and turned back to Mai.

"Hi," she said with a grin.

"What's going on?" Mai asked, looking back at the paper. It was heavier and more expensive than any stationary she'd ever touched before.

"I guess she decided she likes you," Ty Lee replied.
-

The paper was an invitation to the palace, for tomorrow afternoon after school.
-

That day once classes were over, Ty Lee smiled at Lien and said that she was sorry about everything and Princess Azula wanted to speak to her. Lien straightened her dress the whole way to the back of the school.

"What do you think the palace will look like?" Ty Lee asked, as she sat on Lien's back while Mai hacked off her hair. Lien was crying and biting down on her sleeve (Ty Lee had threatened to punch her again if she wasn't quiet).

". . . I don't know," Mai replied, settling back on her heels and brushing stray bits of hair from her hands. "Big."

Ty Lee glanced over. "Make it shorter," she said. "Like a boy's."

Lien bit down harder on her sleeve to muffle a sob.
-

Lien's servant had a most undignified panic attack when the girl finally returned to the classroom. Mai and Ty Lee were already heading away from the academy when the woman finally led her out, wringing her hands the whole time.

The truth of what had happened never came out, of course, especially since Mai began sitting with Ty Lee and Azula the next day. Lien's mother tried desperately to salvage what was left of her daughter's hair.

—

Mai's mother fussed over her clothing so long the next morning that she was almost late for school.

Azula laughed at the way her hair had been piled up fancily when she saw her. Mai pulled out all the pins save those needed to keep her hair out of her face during the first class, and then during lunch, used them to knock the ornaments out of Lien's.

—

She almost didn't recognize Azula when she first visited the palace. It wasn't that anything physically changed about the princess, but she . . . talked.

She talked, and laughed, and shoved Ty Lee once when the other girl managed to jump along the stones in the pond without getting the cuffs of her pants wet. She acted like she was their age.

Mai watched Ty Lee wring out her hair, and remembered how Azula had never blinked while staring into the sun, and realized that all the girly stuff their classmates did, the way they undercut each other while being sweet and kind to adults, was only the imperfect imitation of an art Azula had already mastered.
-

It was on her third visit to the palace that Mai first saw Zuko. She thought he was a cousin.

"Who's that?" she asked, pointing to the boy who was walking with the Fire Lady, the one who'd dared to show up on the walkway along the garden after the three of them had successfully run away from the servants who were supposed to be watching them. Azula and Ty Lee looked over, but Azula only pursed her lips.

"That's your brother, right?" Ty Lee asked after Azula didn't speak, a roundabout way of handing Mai the information while pretending to be looking for confirmation from Azula. Ty Lee was really good at that; Mai didn't know why Azula put up with it.

She blinked and looked back over again. "That's the prince?" she asked with disbelief.

Compared to Azula and the drawings she'd seen of the Fire Lord, he looked so . . . human. It was strange.

When she glanced over at Ty Lee and Azula again, the princess's face was cold and closed off.
-

Things might have gone differently when Mai returned home much earlier than the last three times, if her mother hadn't panicked over the sudden drop from royal favor.

Mai had actually been upset about Azula suddenly turning her back on her and pulling Ty Lee off, especially since she didn't know what she'd done wrong; but when her mother started pleading with her to go up to the princess tomorrow at the academy and apologize for her poor behavior, Mai realized that she absolutely could not appear affected in order to remain herself.

So instead she told herself that, Fire Princess or not, Azula was stupid if she thought Mai would fall for the same tactics as their classmates. Then she hid the paring knives in her boxed lunch the next morning, planning to head to the back of the school like before or to find somewhere new if Azula ratted her out.
-

Ty Lee arrived earlier than Azula did, like normal--the palace was farther from the academy than the other nobles' houses. She plopped down by Mai's mat when she entered.

"What do you want?" Mai asked.

Ty Lee made a face at her. "Doesn't it hurt your face to be so grumpy all the time?"

"Hurts less than smiling all the time," she replied, and Ty Lee rolled her eyes.

"Smiling doesn't hurt," she retorted, "and then you get lots of friends to mess with!"

"Play with," Mai corrected her with annoyance, and Ty Lee giggled.

Azula arrived while Mai was still giving her a strange look. She'd barely settled on her mat when Ty Lee pushed herself up and left Mai to go over there. Mai wondered if Azula had made some kind of gesture to the other girl that she had missed; but then she scowled and asked herself why she was even thinking about stuff like that.

The entire class murmured to itself when Azula and Ty Lee stayed at the front of the room while Mai glared out the window until the teacher arrived. Mai didn't bother going to the garden for lunch--it would just be full of gossip, and no one would have dared to be on her side even if she wanted them to.
-

The day after that, Ty Lee came in with her hair trimmed two inches shorter than it had been yesterday. She settled on her mat without speaking to Mai, propping her chin in her hand with the pouty look that passed for bored with her.

Mai later learned that Azula had set the end of her braid on fire after school yesterday.
-

That day at lunch, she spotted the teacher lingering in the hallway that she used to get to the back. Mai changed course smoothly and entered the restroom instead, waited for the appropriate amount of time, and then left again.

The teacher was still there, so she followed the last few stragglers from her class and went out into the garden.

Azula and Ty Lee were sitting under her tree, which Mai couldn't manage to feel surprised at. When she noticed that several of the other girls were staring at her, she straightened her shoulders slightly and strode over.

She sat down on the opposite side, harder than she meant to--she wound up slamming her back against the trunk. Her shirt caught on the bark.

A few moments after that, she heard Azula laugh. Mai scowled and opened her lunch.
-

Two more days passed before Mai noticed that there was no teacher in the hall to the outside. She immediately shifted her lunch under her arm and broke away from the rest of the group.

She was halfway down the door to the training area before she heard, "Lady Mai? Where are you going?"

Mai exhaled through her teeth, and thought of the four paring knives hidden underneath the wax paper the dumpling were set on.

Both she and the teacher started when Azula replied sweetly: "We've decided to start training during this time."

"Ah, Princess Azula!" the man replied, turning around quickly and bowing. Mai stared past him at her, and then at Ty Lee, who was slumped against the wall farther down the hallway. "I'm sorry, I . . . must not have heard about that."

"I think it's a good way to spend recess, don't you?" she asked in reply.

". . . Yes, it does seem wise to practice," he agreed, but still looked a little skeptical. "I didn't know that Lady Mai and Lady Ty Lee were firebenders, though."

"They have their own skills," Azula said.

The man pursed his lips slightly, but nodded once and started to head back down the hallway. "Be careful," he told them. "I'll see if one of the firebending instructors is free to spot you."

Azula smiled at him. "Thank you."

After he turned the corner, she looked at Mai.

". . . Thanks," Mai said after a few seconds' pause.

"Don't thank me," Azula replied, striding past her toward the door to outside. "Be worth it."

Or else.

Ty Lee sucked her bottom lip into her teeth briefly, and Mai wondered if she'd already heard this before.
-

Her parents must have received some kind of notice: by the end of the week, it had been arranged for her to have lessons with a shuriken master, and she had her first real set of throwing knives.

Her mother had been unhappy about her taking up such a dangerous skill; but she smothered it well.

——

By the time Mai was certain that Azula was on the dangerous side of crazy, Zuko had been gone for two months, Ty Lee was confined to her home because she'd sprained her ankle trying to do flips on a rope she'd tied between two trees, and Mai's shuriken instructor had told her she'd improved as much as was possible until she started paying more attention to her surroundings. She didn't bother trying to explain that she did notice nearly everything that happened around her--when it mattered.

With Azula, it wasn't really so much a choice as a safety precaution; the same way you weren't supposed to show fear to skunkwolves or look directly at the Fire Lord.
-

There hadn't been anything particularly special about the day, at least not that Mai could figure out. Azula might have had her own private reasoning, but she was hardly going to ask. They'd been walking behind the woman who'd taken over Azula's deportment and various other lessons after the Fire Lady's disappearance, when Azula suddenly grabbed her wrist and began running down a side hallway.

Mai reflexively changed her footing to be as quiet as possible, and frowned at Azula's back as they darted down several more hallways. She stopped frowning and started taking note of all the turns when she realized they were in a part of the palace she'd never seen before, and that Azula might be planning to leave her here to get her into trouble.

It got quieter the further they went, until Mai was starting to feel that prickle under her skin that meant she really really needed to be on her guard. "Where are we going?"

Azula didn't answer until they came to a small nook at the end of several halls and heavy doors. The only thing in it was a short chair facing a curtain that hung across the wall opposite the door, and there was barely enough room for Mai to stand next to Azula. The edge of her sleeve scraped against the wall.

"This is mine," Azula stated, with a vague gesture towards the chair, before sweeping aside the curtain.

Mai sucked in a breath when she realized that she was staring out at the throne room, from a point behind and off to the right of the throne.

The line of fire running before the platform was small, but burning steadily. Mai had heard once that the flames in the Fire Lord's throne room were never extinguished.

"Azula--" she started to say, before cutting herself off.

After a moment, Azula turned to look at her. "Are you afraid of getting in trouble?" she asked with a smirk.

Before Mai could manage to frown in lieu of a denial, Azula looked back out at the room. "You should be."

"Only the highest ranked ministers know that I'm allowed to listen in," she continued, pushing the curtain back further. "And no one enters the throne room uninvited--my father is the avatar of Agni."

Azula let the curtain fall back before her next words, causing Mai to later wonder if there was a part of the princess that was almost human enough to have superstitions.

"And so am I."

Azula turned around sharply and crooked a finger at Mai as she moved past the chair and back toward the door. "Come on."

She followed; the nook was small enough that Azula's voice had echoed slightly when the curtain had blocked the words from being heard in the throne room.
-

In the main garden--the one that was off of the Fire Lady's quarters, not the one they had played in as children--Mai watched as Azula used lightning to set a tree on fire. She continued watching the other girl when she stepped back, hands on her hips, and studied the split trunk as servants scattered into the garden and then back out again.

"How long have you been able to do that?" she finally asked, when the first wave of servants arrived with buckets to scoop water out of the pond.

"Long enough," Azula replied.

Mai didn't ask anything else. They watched the servants struggle to get water from the pond without disturbing the turtleducks.
-

She didn't hear the footsteps behind them. Mai hadn't even realized someone was coming up until the man said "Azula" in a smoky, displeased tone.

She was turning reflexively to face him, the same as Azula, when the princess replied, "Yes, Father?"

It took Mai roughly a second to process what that meant. And then she dropped her gaze and crashed onto her knees, pressing her forehead against them.

Azula, still standing beside her, snorted quietly; Mai for once didn't care, because she could only think that she had entered the throne room uninvited and he was the Fire Lord what if he knew?

The Fire Lord ignored her completely. "I expected better from you," he told Azula, tone still displeased.

"I apologize, Father," she replied regretfully, bowing her head. "My foot slipped at the end of the kata."

No it didn't, Mai thought, staring at the cloth of her skirt. The grass was tickling her palms, and the dampness of the ground was seeping unpleasantly through her clothes. The turtleducks were still squawking at the servants.

"You know better than to let yourself be distracted," the Fire Lord said. "Your school friend will return to her home, and you will practice."

"Of course, Father."

He said nothing else.

Mai waited until his footsteps were hidden by the noise of the servants and the turtleducks, and then waited a couple seconds longer, even though she could hear Azula's feet shifting.

There were faint, damp stains on her skirt along her shins. Mai brushed a few bits of grass off the cloth before glancing at Azula.

She'd already pulled her lips back, ready to scowl at whatever cutting remark the other girl made; but when she looked at Azula's face, the princess was staring at her with an expression that had almost no amusement and a lot of something else that Mai couldn't place. The corner of her mouth was curled up slightly.

"Let's go," she said, turning aside abruptly before Mai could think of anything to say, leaving the garden and the servants and the turtleducks behind.
-

In the grand hall that opened up before the main outer steps of the palace, Azula suddenly caught her arm and pulled her to a stop. When Mai started to turn to look at her, Azula pressed her mouth against her ear and then cupped both of her hands around it, to conceal what she was saying.

"He's jealous," Azula whispered fiercely, "because he can't create lightning."

When the Fire Princess pulled back after that, the look she gave Mai clearly said If you ever repeat that, I will kill you, and nothing will happen to me in retribution.

A moment later, she realized that with that secret Azula had just chained Mai to her, until Fire Lord Ozai was dead.

Mai thought of the way her parents had whispered to each other the first week after Fire Lord Azulon's death, and wondered where Zuko was now.

Azula smiled at her, and there was still a hint of that something else in it. Then she turned around.

"See you at school."

Mai absently tapped her wrist against her hip, feeling the weight of the knives attached to her holster, and watched Azula's back as she went down the opposite side of the hallway toward the firebending pavilions.

Then she turned around and began making her way down the steps.

—

Mai and Azula had had several disagreements over the years, so when she came home early, her mother only fretted a little about the potential impact on their social status. In fact, she almost didn't fret at all, because she was beaming so much.

"Honestly, Mai, if you were just a little more friendly . . ." her mother murmured, smoothing her bangs back from her face. Mai let her, because moving away would have put her further from the entrance to the hallway leading towards her room.

"Well!" she continued, smiling broadly. "I have some news to cheer you up." She paused for a few seconds, but when Mai didn't ask, she went on. "You're going to have a new brother or sister!"

Mai stared at her.

After several moments, her mother's smile fell. "You could try to be happy about this, you know."

"I saw the Fire Lord today," she replied.

When her mother gasped and reflexively pressed a hand to her mouth, Mai skirted past her and headed down the hallway.

—

By the time the order came for her family to move to the Earth Kingdom in preparation for the conquest of Omashu, Mai and the others had already graduated from the Royal Fire Academy, and Ty Lee had run off overseas to join the circus. Neither Mai nor Azula had seen her off--she'd packed up, bought her ticket, and left on one of the earliest ships. Her brief, cheerful notes to them hadn't arrived until the next day.

Mai had vaguely wondered if Ty Lee were fleeing, but then realized that Azula could have had her ship returned to port if that were so.

Then she stopped and wondered if Azula actually could--would her father have allowed it? What did the Fire Lord think of her and Ty Lee at this point?

When the news of the governorship at Omashu came--not a remarkable position for her father, but still one that was one or two pegs above his social status--Mai began to suspect that the answer was 'potential threats.'

Mai doubled the amount of knives she carried on her and practiced walking and holding herself casually with the weight for a week before their departure. She packed an acceptable number into her traveling trunks, and then secreted the rest in the bags she would be keeping with her at all times, among the toiletries and traveling clothes.

—

Azula didn't see her off. Mai was unsurprised, but still--irritatingly--felt slightly upset by it. She slipped away when her mother was directing the placement of the luggage and lurked around the port, wondering how different the air in the Earth Kingdom would be.
-

It was from two stevedores who didn't know she was behind the row of crates that she heard the news.

"It's impossible," the older one said.

"Then why are all the recruiters for Admiral Zhao's armada talking about it?" the younger one replied, patiently.

There was the thump of a crate on the sturdy ground of the port. "If he's dead, why hasn't it been declared? You don't ignore the death of a member of the royal family."

The younger stevedore snorted under his breath. "Who would waste announcements on a banished prince?"

Mai pressed her back against the row of crates and stood very still.

"Banished or not, he's a prince."

The younger man made a noise in the back of his throat that said he didn't agree but wasn't going to argue with his elders. There was another heavy thump.

"Funny how all the firstborns these days go out without a comment," the older stevedore said, so quietly that Mai might not have heard him if she had been breathing.

"What are you saying?" the younger man asked, and his voice had changed slightly, taken on a nervous tone.

"Nothing," the other man replied, grunting as he hefted something, "nothing at all."

They didn't speak after that; Mai heard their heavy tread fading off in the direction away from her, and kept her back against the crates.
-

Three family servants were finally sent around the port to look for Mai when it came time for the ship to depart and she couldn't be found on board.
-

Her father started to admonish her when he came up to the railing where she was standing, but then he saw her face.

"Mai! You're not seasick, are you?" When she flicked her gaze to him, just long enough to convey how stupid a question she thought that was, he pursed his lips. "You look so pale. . . ."

"Don't worry," her mother said as she walked up to the two of them, moving a little unsteadily because she was cradling Tomtom. "We're not leaving the Fire Nation behind--we're bringing it with us."

She rested a hand on Mai's back, more heavily than normal because she was trying to brace herself. Mai stared at the port as the boat sailed away and wondered how long Azula had known.

How long did she know, and didn't tell me?

—

Despite being a generally quiet or at least happy baby, Tomtom had decided he hated the ship, and expressed his displeasure at being on it by never shutting up. Mai had already been struggling to find a way to practice without rendering the furniture in her cabin unusable, but after the second day of constant crying, she began scouting out the ship. She finally broke into the storerooms at the very bottom and used the largest, sturdiest crate for practice. She also killed several rats, though that was more out of disgust than a desire not to fall behind on moving targets.

She got away with it for three days before she was caught by one of the soldiers. Mai had been careful to time their patrols and hide when they came by, so she supposed one of them had finally spotted the notches in the wood.

He caught her off-guard, as well. Mai had been concentrating on getting each blade perfectly aligned with the one above or below it, moving in a pattern that was completely impractical for combat purposes but that forced her to focus enough to ignore her frustration and anger. She didn't hear the soldier coming until she suddenly registered that, below the steady thunk of the knives into the wood, was the clang of metal on metal.

Mai turned smoothly on her heel without thinking about it, shifting her grip on the handle so that it would arc higher than she'd previously intended, and threw the knife before reflecting that she was the one trespassing here.

The knife ricocheted off his breastplate with a high ping, and fell back onto the ground between them.

Mai and the soldier stared at each other for a few awkward moments.

Then Mai tightened her jaw, and bent her head slightly. She made her expression blank before saying, "I apologize. Are you okay?"

The soldier bowed further than her at that, voice smooth as he replied, "No, I apologize; I didn't mean to startle you." He straightened before adding, "If you wish to practice, you're free to use one of the training rooms."

Mai rarely explained herself out of a basic condescension of those around her, but she was standing in the middle of a stockroom that she'd broken into. "I did that the first day. The sound of my little brother's crying carried all the way over from port side."

The soldier paused briefly at that, and Mai wondered what his expression looked like behind the mask.

"It does," the man replied after another moment. "That's why many of us have been using the second room, closer to the noise. It's good to train in aggravating situations."

His voice was still even and polite. Mai kept her face blank.

After a few more moments, the soldier turned slightly towards the side, angling himself toward the door he'd come through. Mai went to pull her knives out of the crate.
-

The soldier locked the storeroom door behind him once they were out, and then turned and caught up to Mai in a few strides. She tapped her wrist against her hip once--one of her knives was missing, she'd thrown it at a rat and would have to go back for it later--and continued down the hall, not looking at him.

"I have to say," the man commented when they were nearly at the stairs to the next deck, in a dry, amused tone different from how he'd been speaking earlier, "I've never been on a ship with so few rats before."

"Mm," Mai replied.
-

The soldier had been telling the truth about most of the guard with them using the larger practice room. Mai took over the smaller one, and used stray pieces of furniture for targets. Her parents learned to defaultly look for her in there before checking her quarters; the firebenders generally left the room to her after she stopped speaking to them altogether.

—

The storming of Omashu was still in its tail-end when they arrived. The king of the city had surrendered, but he'd apparently failed to pass the news along to his citizens. The army wanted them to wait until they could guarantee all the earthbenders had been found and there was a clear, straight path to the palace. Mai's family was relocated at the back of the camp.

When the promised remaining two days turned into a week, Mai wandered down to one of the information posts after her daily training, to see if there was any news on where Ty Lee's circus was currently located. Since the post was near a camp, it had more recent information than those located further out--the first of the posters describing the treason of Iroh and Zuko were already up.

Mai stared at the poster for several minutes before she finally read the writing.

It confirmed that Zuko was still living. Disowned, a traitor, and wanted dead or alive; but still living.

Both he and his uncle were proclaimed wanted dead or alive, in fact. Both of them members of the royal family, sharers of the blood of Agni--and now any common bounty hunter had permission to kill them.

Mai remembered the older stevedore's muttered comment, and wondered how Azula was planning to undo the damage her father was wrecking.

Eventually, after checking that no one else was around, Mai tore the poster off. Then she pushed up her inner sleeve and carefully wrapped the paper around her forearm, below the knives' holster, before pulling her sleeve back over it. There was a slight bulge to it, but the soldiers around where her family was camped all knew she was armed, and would likely consider it another hidden weapon. Her parents wouldn't notice.
-

During the move into Omashu Mai ripped up two more wanted posters, realized that they would be everywhere, and stopped.

She focused instead on catching members of the resistance. They were only slightly more dangerous than the rats on the ship, but their size and earthbending made for good practice. And there was nothing better to do.

—

She should have been less surprised when Azula sent word of her arrival than she was.

—

It wasn't that Mai had missed them, exactly. She hadn't gone through her days thinking oh, this would be so much less boring with Azula around, or oh, Ty Lee's affected airheadedness would have been vastly more amusing than these people's genuine stupidity. She'd done fine alone.

It was just that when they showed up, things were better.

For a while.

Story of their friendship, when she thought about it.
-

She didn't learn about the mission until later; Azula had turned around and looked down at the city before drawling, "I would have expected to see more corpses coming in, for a city this empty."

"There was a plague or something," Mai replied, and Azula turned back to her, eyebrow raised.

She was still explaining about the pentapox and the resistance kidnapping her brother when her father showed up from overseeing the throne room that had been swiftly arranged when Azula's letter of announcement arrived. Azula's eyes had lidded slightly as she'd listened, in that dangerous way that meant she'd thought of something; but it wasn't until they were beginning the trade that Mai worked it out.

She probably should have caught on when Azula singled her out to conduct the trade rather than her father; but time away from the princess had made her lax. Without Azula, there had been no one Mai had been forced to think several steps ahead just to stay a step behind with.
-

"I'm sorry," Azula said suddenly, while the scaffolding was still vibrating faintly from where the transportable prison had been set down, "but a thought just occurred to me. Do you mind?"

It was that tone. Ty Lee recognized it too; Mai heard her shift her feet as she was turning to glance at Azula. "Of course not, Princess Azula."

Azula tilted her head, just slightly. "We're trading a two-year-old for a king. A powerful, earthbending king?" she added, looking back to the old man as if she'd ever needed confirmation for a statement she'd made.

Azula's pause after that was more for show than anything; her voice was carrying to the resistance group across the scaffold, and Mai already understood. "It just doesn't seem like a fair trade, does it?"

Mai was silent.

She thought of the firebending stance Azula had been in the first time they'd spoken to each other, of Ty Lee's Azula called a little louder and the two inches of burnt hair she'd had to cut off, and then thought of the whispered secret about the Fire Lord and the look on Azula's face when she'd pulled back, detached and confident and lacking any of the emotion or mortality of Zuko.

Then she thought of the old man's words about firstborns, and the wanted poster for Zuko and Iroh that was still wrapped around her upper left arm, underneath her inner sleeve, because she didn't want to risk her mother or Tomtom going through her things and finding it.

This is mine, Azula had said, before sweeping open the curtain to the Fire Kingdom's throne room.

My foot slipped, Azula had said, lying straight-faced to the Fire Lord when she knew that Mai knew the truth.

He's jealous because he can't create lightning.

She looked at the group, too far away for her to really make out her brother, and wondered if this had anything to do with the king at all, or if it was all just a test of what she would be willing to walk away from for Azula's sake.

Mai made certain that her expression was even before she spoke. "You're right."

—

She burned the wanted poster for Zuko and Iroh in her fireplace while she was packing to leave. There was no way she would have been able to hide it from Azula.

—

One day, when they were breaking down camp and Azula wasn't back from practicing her firebending yet, Mai dumped the bedroll she'd fastened next to Ty Lee and asked, "Do you know about Azula's father?"

Ty Lee tilted her head and looked up at her. "Know what?"

Mai stared at her and felt, for a moment, a very strange combination of hate and pleasure. Hate, because Ty Lee was the one who was going to be allowed to leave, and pleasure, because she was the one trusted with one of the most dangerous royal secrets.

"Nothing," she replied after a few more moments.

Ty Lee pouted at her, but Mai ignored the other girl's attempts to get her to explain; and when Azula came back and heard about it, she told her to be quiet. Ty Lee sulked as she swung herself up onto the mongoose dragon, but didn't say anything else.

Azula gave Mai a look as she settled into her saddle. Mai adjusted the holster on her left arm and pretended to have missed it.