A/N - Something quick to show I'm still alive while I work on the next chapters of Field of Innocence and The Once and Future King. Takes place some time before Blood of the Dragon, and based on many, many real life interactions between me, my younger brother, and my mom. :)
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"You guys fight like an old married couple."
-Charlie Bradbury, Supernatural
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It had been exactly six months today since Azula had been discharged from the mental facility and returned to the palace, and Mai couldn't take it any more.
Oh, she didn't dislike having Azula back home in itself. Far from it. Over the past two years, as the princess had gradually become more stable under the capable care of Dr. Minoru and his staff, Mai had visited her in the facility, accompanied as often as possible by Ty Lee. In what had become regular occurrences, the three of them had, slowly and steadily, been able to rebuild their friendship. And she had to admit, as one of the few people who had ever been really close to Azula, Mai was happy that she had been able to start overcoming her problems just as her brother had. Coming to that, in the time since the end of the war to now, the royal siblings had even been able to do something she had thought would be impossible for them: genuinely get along.
Rebuilding broken bonds was one thing, but creating bonds where they had barely existed before was quite another. Yet Zuko and Azula were managing it. It had been too many years since the two hadn't been antagonistic to each other, and though she wouldn't say it out loud, Mai was actually proud of them. Really, she was. The three of them could all be perfectly content were it not for one annoying little habit the siblings had taken up. She supposed it was better than them trying to kill each other, but the fact remained that this gave her a much bigger headache, and after six months with no letup, she wasn't sure how much more she could take of this.
This. Agni. Damned. Bickering.
How they had the energy and stamina to keep it up for what seemed like every minute of every day was beyond her. Ty Lee had said it was just a sibling thing and it was only natural, but that seemed to make more sense when one had six siblings to contend with instead of just one. She certainly couldn't relate. In her opinion, she got along rather well with Tom-Tom (Tomohiro, he had started insisting on being called, now that he was four and "practically grown up," as he thought of it), although that was probably due to the fact that they almost always had the majority of a nation between them and only saw each other a few times a month. Such distance probably made it easy to find a sibling less annoying. But still, even though Zuko and Azula once again shared a home and were in constant close proximity to each other, there really was no reason for them to start an argument over every little thing they could find to argue about.
Mai was certain that no other siblings - no other people, for that matter - would fight for almost an hour straight over whether the color vermillion was dark red or orange-red, whether or not a tigerdillo could beat a lion vulture in a one-on-one match, and whether their argument over which of their favorite books was better technically counted as an argument. The only one she even mildly approved of was their fight over which of their significant others was better. Neither of them gave the slightest care who heard their altercations, and their passionate shouting could be heard in the whole of the palace grounds for all to hear. She'd be lying if she said that she and Ty Lee hadn't been at least a little flattered by how fiercely their respective lovers defended and praised them, but this was the only argument that had nearly escalated into another Agni Kai, and considering how their last one went the two of them had decided that it was best to just forcibly pull the siblings apart and officially declare a tie. But as for all the others...
Well, Mai just couldn't take it any more, plain and simple. She wondered how long it would take before the pair finally made her lose it. As it happened, it was only a few days later at the royal family's breakfast table that the inevitable loss of temper occurred.
"That is not what would happen!" Zuko said heatedly, standing up and leaning over the table in a way that always looked to Mai like the human version of a dog's hackles raising.
"Yes, it is," Azula retorted, narrowing her eyes. "If you tried to feed a dragon hot peppers, it wouldn't make its fire any hotter. All the scrolls from great-grandfather's time clearly say that dragons used specialized glands in their bodies that produced flammable agents and combined them to create fire. Why are you bringing it up, anyway? All the dragons are gone now, so it's not important."
"How would you know? You weren't there! And it is so important!"
"Neither were you! And no, it's not!"
"Yes, it is!"
"No, it's not!"
"Yes, it is!"
"No, it's not!"
"Yes, it i - "
"Shut up!"
Both siblings jumped at the unexpected shout and palm slam on the table, and turned to look, completely stunned, at Mai standing and glaring at them. "Will you two stop with the bickering already?" she snapped. "It's so annoying!"
"...Bickering?" Zuko echoed, staring at her with his best impression of a kicked, bewildered puppy.
"What are you talking about?" Azula asked, for once just as confused as her brother.
Their reactions pulled Mai up short for a second. Was their arguing so familiar for them that they honestly didn't consider it arguing any more? "But...You're constantly going back and forth, back and forth, over every little stupid thing! You never stop!"
"We're just talking," Zuko protested weakly, cowed before the (in his eyes inexplicable) wrath of his wife.
True to form, Azula recovered quickly. "If I'm not terribly mistaken, back and forth is generally how conversations go, Mai," she said, in that light, casually condescending tone of hers that always gave Mai the brief but intense urge to stab something, preferably the princess. "I know you don't talk as much as most people, but I thought that you at least knew that."
"That's not what I...! You two are just - so - Agh!" Not entirely certain that she could keep talking to the siblings at the moment without winding up slapping one or both of them straight across the face, Mai turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.
"...What was that all about, do you think?" Zuko asked, staring wide-eyed at the empty doorway.
"I don't know. But whatever she's really annoyed about, it's probably your fault, Zuzu," Azula decided.
"What?! I didn't do anything!"
"I'll bet you did. You're always doing something annoying."
"Yeah? Well, you'd lose that bet! It was probably you who set her off!"
"I didn't do anything! Not everything's my fault!"
"Well, maybe this time it is!"
"No, it's not!"
"Yes, it is!"
"No, it's not!"
"Yes, it is!"
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"Hey, Mai!" Ty Lee greeted her friend brightly on seeing her coming down the hall toward her, then frowned once she saw the distinctly irritated expression on her face. "What's the matter?"
Mai didn't answer directly. Instead she passed right by Ty Lee, muttering darkly under her breath, and before she was out of earshot Ty Lee was fairly certain she'd caught the phrases "royal idiots" and "double homicide." This, however, was all she needed to figure out the problem, and on doing this she immediately made her way to the family dining room.
She heard the first strains of the yelling three halls away, and when she reached the source of the noise she leaned against the wall by the door, took a pencil and little packet of paper (its first page marked by a T-shaped chart with several dozen dashes on either side) out of her pocket, and prepared herself to wait however long it took for Zuko and Azula to finish their bout so she could officially document who had won this round. She didn't bother trying to stop the small smile that came on to her face as she wondered what their reactions would be when the two of them found out that she'd been keeping track of their bickering as if it were a legitimate competition - if they insisted on fighting like an old married couple, why shouldn't she have a little fun with it?
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