For round 4 of the Pro-Bending circuit: What would AtLA and/or LoK be like without one character?
Words (not including author's note): 2206
Prompts: (location) Fire Nation Capital, (AU) Circus
###
Fire Lord Ozai sat behind his barrier of flames. Personally, Mai didn't find it very impressive. It was just showing off. Of course you couldn't say things like that to the Fire Lord. Or at least, not more than once.
"My daughter spoke very highly of your skills."
Mai bowed lower. "Azula had a very generous nature." Everyone of course knew that was a lie, but that's the sort of thing you said.
"I have also heard that you were fond of my son."
Mai grimaced. "That was a long time ago."
"Good. I have need of your skills, and I wouldn't want you distracted by sentiment." Mai barely resisted snorting at the thought. The Fire Lord proceeded to lay out his commands. That she was to journey to the Earth Kingdom, find the disgraced Prince Zuko, and return him to the Fire Nation by force. She got the distinct impression that if that meant dumping Zuko's cooling corpse in the throne room, that was just fine by Ozai.
Mai bowed again. "As devastated as I will be to be separated from my parents…" On their way to the armpit of the Earth Kingdom, she added silently. "…it will be my honor and pleasure to do as My Lord commands."
And the fact that she was able to say that with a straight face should be enough to impress anyone.
###
Ty Lee loved touring in the Earth Kingdom. At least if you stayed away from the soldiers. And the bandits. And anyone who'd get nasty just because you looked Fire Nation. Aside from all that, the audiences were great. Back home, everyone was so stiff these days. Circuses weren't considered an "uplifting part of Fire Nation culture." No wonder so many people's auras were such a dingy yellow.
Tonight they were stopped between towns, and wouldn't be performing. So after securing her caravan, she went for a walk in the woods. That's where she heard the bickering.
"I can't believe you sent the ostrich horse back."
"It belonged to them, and they need it. It was dishonorable to steal it."
"Of course it was. It's dishonorable to steal anything. We're exiles. We don't have any honor anymore."
"Nephew, honor is not something anyone else can give or take away from you. It's something you have to claim for yourself."
Ty Lee pushed through the bushes and saw a heavyset elderly man arguing with a teenage boy. A teenage boy with a burn scar over his eye. "Zuko?" she said.
The two turned to look at her. "Oh, that's all we need," said Zuko.
###
Mai had concluded that the best way to find Zuko was to follow rumors of the Avatar. It was inconceivable that he'd let a little thing like utter disgrace stand in the way of his self-appointed mission. Unfortunately, there were a lot of rumors about the Avatar, and most of them were months out of date.
Now she was in a town which the Avatar had supposedly saved from a volcano. The people were still living there, which struck Mai as even more stupid than people usually were. Everyone there insisted that Mai should visit the local fortune teller. To get them to shut up, Mai eventually agreed.
"You will find what you are looking for where you least expect it," the old woman.
Mai gave her a long stare. "How does that even make sense?"
###
"Why are we doing this?" Zuko had been making the same complaint every night before show time for the past several weeks.
"Because no one will ever expect to find you here. It's called 'hiding in plain sight.'" Ty Lee was starting to feel like she was reading from a script, she'd made that answer so many times.
"As clowns." And that was really the heart of the problem. There just weren't that many jobs that Zuko and Iroh could do in the circus. And there wasn't anything better to keep people from recognizing them. They were actually pretty good as clowns. "Mushi and Junior" were always a very popular part of the show, and the ringmaster had started featuring them on posters and handbills. This hadn't helped Zuko's mood.
Ty Lee decided to try a different tack. "I suppose the circus could always use a fire-eater."
"What's that?"
"It's an act with torches. You put the lit end into your mouth and take the fire into your mouth and then you breath the fire back out to light the torch again."
Zuko looked puzzled. "What's so hard about that?"
"The people who do it usually aren't firebenders."
Zuko stared at her. "You mean you think I should use my firebending as part of pretending to not be a firebender?" Ty Lee just shrugged. Zuko buried his head in his hands. "Just hand me the greasepaint."
###
There were rumors about the Avatar everywhere. He'd rescued either a blind heiress or a lady wrestler, opinions were divided on that point, from the clutches of either her parents or other wrestlers. He'd stopped the invasion of a town where everyone wanted to kill him. He'd even either kidnapped Mai's own baby brother or possibly rescued him from kidnappers. None of them made a lick of sense, and none of them led Mai to Zuko.
She was now in an entirely grotty little hole of a town on the edge of the Si Wong desert, out of which the Avatar had allegedly led a fifty person archaeological expedition in search of a lost tribe of air nomad bookbinders. Clearly there must be something wrong in the water of this kingdom, and it was only a matter of time before she succumbed like all the residents.
Then, against all expectation, she spotted a familiar figure. A young woman, walking down the street on her hands, with a sign reading "Come see the Circus!" strapped to her back.
"Ty Lee?"
###
"She what!"
Ty Lee made shushing gestures with her hands. "Zuko, keep your voice down. She said the circus would be perfect cover for her search. I couldn't very well tell her 'No' without making her suspicious. Besides, the ringmaster is very excited about having a knife-throwing act."
"That's it," Zuko said. "We're leaving."
Iroh spoke up. "That is the one thing we cannot do. Not precipitously. Our sudden disappearance would excite comment."
"She'll recognize me the moment she lays eyes on me. And she's been sent to catch me."
"I've been thinking about that," Ty Lee said. "You're just going to have to keep yourselves to yourselves. Oh, and don't leave your caravan without your makeup on."
Zuko started beating his head slowly on the table.
###
For three whole days, Ty Lee thought they might be able to pull it off. Then she came across Mai talking to the ringmaster. "You know," Mai said. "Ty Lee is a good assistant for my act, but having a pretty girl is just a little obvious for the target in a knife throwing act." The ringmaster nodded, saying he had thought so himself. "Maybe," Mai continued, "someone a little more unusual. I was thinking one of the clowns. Maybe the one called 'Junior?'"
Ty Lee tried to warn Zuko. She really did. But he was off sulking somewhere, and the ringmaster found him first. And it was too near show time. And now he was standing up against the big painted board Mai used as the target for her act. Ty Lee didn't want to watch, but she couldn't look away.
###
Mai narrowed her eyes and took aim. The first knife was so close to "Junior's" head that it trimmed off some hair. The clown flinched, pulled the knife out of the target and brandished it "What is your problem?" Zuko yelled.
"My problem," Mai said, periodically punctuating her speech with one knife thrown after another, "is that I've got lots of problems. I don't know what's worse. The fact that you left without saying goodbye. That your father sent me to bring you back. Or that you all think I am actually stupid enough that I wouldn't know it was you!"
###
Half the circus folk stood in the wings watching the argument. The ringmaster tore at his hair. "Are they having a domestic in front of the audience? I've never even seen them speak to each other before!"
Ty Lee twisted her fingers. "It's complicated."
Iroh shouldered his way to the front of the crowd. "Desperate times call for desperate measures," he said, and Ty Lee saw the determined set to his jaw and the steel in his eyes. She had never seen him embody the General before. She felt the urge to stand up straighter in his presence. He turned to her. "I shall require your assistance."
###
Zuko and Mai had apparently lost any awareness of their surroundings, and were standing a couple of paces apart, shouting at each other. Iroh and Ty Lee marched from out of the wings to stand near the arguing couple. They bowed to each other and then turned and bowed to the audience. This finally penetrated Zuko and Mai's awareness and they stopped quarrelling to stare at the other two. Iroh bowed to Zuko, and Ty Lee bowed to Mai. Too late, the arguing teenagers saw the pies that the old general and the acrobat had brought with them.
###
"You're dead, Ty Lee. You know I hate coconut." Mai had wiped most of the filling off of her face, but she had bits of cream here and there. Ty Lee didn't really think Mai would do anything besides yell at her, but she kept Yondu the strong man between her and her old friend just in case.
"You two seemed to have reached an impasse," Iroh said mildly. "It was necessary to distract you. Now we can all have a civilized conversation over some tea."
"Stop talking," Zuko said to his Uncle. He walked up to Mai and handed her a towel. Which was pretty gallant of him, considering that his eyebrows were still white with whipped cream. "Are you going to complete your mission?" he asked.
She glowered at him. "Don't be ridiculous."
The ringmaster bustled up. "That was brilliant! The audience loved it. You should really discuss new routines with me before you try them out, but you can't argue with success. If I could make one tiny suggestion, maybe don't let the argument run quite so long next time."
Zuko and Mai looked at each other, then turned to stare at the ringmaster. Iroh seemed to be very carefully looking up into the high rigging. Ty Lee giggled nervously.
"What's the use?" Mai said, and stalked out of the tent. Zuko hesitated just a moment before pursuing her.
The ringmaster looked confused. "Was it something I said?"
Iroh laid a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, you know how temperamental performers can be about criticism."
###
Much later, Ty Lee sat on the stoop of her caravan. She leaned forward, chin propped up on her hands, looking glumly into the night. Iroh came up to join her. "What is troubling you, young one?"
"Mai and Zuko made up."
Iroh's brow furrowed. "Why is that a problem?"
Ty Lee jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the closed door of the caravan. As if on cue, Mai's voice came floating out from the interior, saying in a very un-Mai-like tone, "Oh, Zuko!"
"Ah. Never mind," said Iroh. "You can spend the night in my caravan and I shall bed down with the ostrich horses."
###
Months later, they were in Ba Sing Se having just completed a command performance for the Earth King. "It is not how I expected to conquer Ba Sing Se," Iroh said, "but the workings of fate are strange."
Zuko came in carrying a newspaper. "Huh. Apparently, the Avatar and a combined army of Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe warriors just overthrew my father. Apparently, there was a total eclipse of the sun that caused everyone to lose their firebending ability temporarily."
Ty Lee pouted. "So I guess all of you will be going back now?"
Zuko exchanged a look with Mai and blushed. "I guess there's no rush."
"Who did they get to assume the throne?" Iroh asked.
"Believe it or not, Azula."
Mai sprayed the tea she had been sipping across the table at these words, and Ty Lee felt her lip start to quiver. "B-but Azula's dead!"
Zuko stared at her. "Who told you that?"
Ty Lee turned to look accusingly at Mai. "Don't blame me!" Mai said. "Ozai was telling everyone she was dead." Mai turned her own glare at Zuko. "If you knew, why didn't you say?"
"Because no one told me they thought she was dead!"
"Then where was she?" Ty Lee wailed.
"She said she was going to go looking for our mother. I guess she succeeded."
Ty Lee stared at him for a moment, and then turned and rushed from the room. "I'm going back to the Fire Nation."
Behind her Zuko said, "I thought she was the one who wanted to stay with the circus."
"Just roll with it, Sweetheart," said Mai.