A/N: This is my first Avatar:TLA fic. I am in love with the series and have always found Zuko and Mai's relationship to be the most realistic and compelling. Please review and tell me what you think!
When she was seven she learned the importance of never speaking out of turn. She had been eating dinner with her parents and another noble family, when she remembered to tell her mother about the heavy compliment her teacher had given her during lessons that day. Without waiting for a lull in the conversation between her father and the other man, Mai shouted across the table to get her mother's attention, a feat that often proved difficult. Immediately her mother's eyes snapped toward Mai, a look of anger and shock on her face. Without a word she stood up from her seat, strode over to Mai and grabbed her by the hand to pull her from the room. She led her daughter to her bedroom, shutting the door before kneeling before Mai and grasping her shoulders.
"What have I told you before about speaking out of turn?" her voice, barely above a whisper, quivered with fury. Tears threatened to spill from Mai's eyes.
"Stop crying, Mai," her mother scolded, shaking the young girl's shoulders.
"A young lady never speaks unless spoken to," Mai answered through her tears, knowing it was the answer her mother wanted to hear, the one she had ingrained in her daughter since birth.
"That's right. No dinner," her mother spoke her punishment. She turned to leave, locking the door behind her as she returned to the dinner party.
When she was fourteen her mother told her that she was too thin.
"You have the body of a young boy, Mai," she spoke, her tone chastising. The noble woman dressed her daughter in a fine silk robe, preparing her for the dinner with a number of other Fire Nation dignitaries living in Omashu.
"I suppose you'll fill out eventually," she continued, now running a comb through her daughter's thick black hair. Mai said nothing.
"I just hope we can find a husband for you when the time comes," she continued. Mai willed herself not to betray her sadness as she thought of the boy she wished to marry— a banished prince who was now on a cold steel ship in the middle of the ocean.
"I only want what is best for you, Mai. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, mother," she said, her voice soft from disuse.
Mai carried her mother's words with her, eating away at the back of her mind whenever she was at school or in the company of friends. She dared not speak of it to anyone. No one would know that the things her mother said had any effect on her. Not even her mother would know. She'd arrange her features into a mask of perfect apathy as her mother scolded and prodded, always wanting her daughter to be more, to be better. Mai took everything her mother said to her, turning it over in her mind until the rough edges of her criticisms became smooth, like a grain of sand being turned into a pearl. As she grew from adolescence she became quiet and still, preferring to watch and listen rather than loudly proclaim her desires and emotions.
Her mother and father regarded her in much the same way one would regard a beautiful, priceless vase: put on display and admired but never listened to, never needed. When her mother had first announced her second pregnancy she had been excited, hoping that she would have a little brother or sister she could look after; someone who would listen and understand the difficulty of being raised by a mother who did nothing but critique every aspect of you. But when her younger brother was born he was fawned over. Her mother and father gave him the love and affection they had withheld from Mai, and when he wasn't with their parents there was always a servant to look after him.
Mai had never been needed until she fell in love with Zuko. She had grown so accustomed to solitude that his return to her in Ba Sing Se, his return to the Fire Nation, was like a blazing meteor, burning and glowing and drawing her in to the light that now bathed a once dark landscape. With him she did not have to be proper and smooth and emotionless, like some kind of statue carved from granite. Each day she spent in his company warmed her; each smile that he coaxed from her served as a tug at the well-crafted mask she wore around everyone else.
And just as suddenly as he returned, he was gone again, off to help the Avatar defeat the Fire Lord. When Mai read the letter he left for her she was not surprised. Zuko always spoke of honor and destiny. Though Mai found talk of destiny to be overrated, she envied Zuko's sense of purpose. She had never known what her own destiny was supposed to be, whether the spirits and gods knew something she didn't, but she did know that she wanted to be a part of Zuko's. Knowing this made turning against Azula seem easy, rational even. She would trust him, and she would wait. Waiting was something she was all too accustomed to. She would wait like she had when he had first left her, scarred and cast away by his own father. She would throw knives at her bedroom wall and dig them in to the soft flesh of her side, where she could hide the marks beneath billowing gowns and robes, a habit she had first turned to when she was thirteen, when she had left her home in the Fire Nation for the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu. She would wait for her anger and pain to subside and she would wait for him to return to her once again.
This is different, is all she can think as she lies in his bed, his body half on top of hers, his head between her small breasts and his arms wrapped protectively around her. It is not that she is adverse to this level of affection— in fact she finds it quite welcome— it is simply foreign to her. As a small child she had craved this sort of thing; her mother had been too busy socializing with those of higher rank and preparing Mai to do the same, while her father held her in quiet contempt as a result of her gender. She was not held or cradled or told she was loved. Family was not love; family was duty and honor. She was comforted only by solitude, and as a result had grown accustomed to being alone.
And now there is Zuko, cradling her body to his as he sleeps, every breath he exhales melting in to her skin and warming her entire body, from her core to her fingertips. The war is over, and they are alone in his bedroom, alone in the vast expanse of the Fire Nation palace, accompanied only by guards on the outskirts of the palace grounds.
Zuko is different than Mai. Where she had been raised in solitude Zuko had been thrust in to it, exiled from his home and put onto a ship, comforted only by his uncle and the vast emptiness of the ocean. He had thrived off of the affection given to him by his mother, had grown from and was shaped by it. Her sudden departure from his life had shaken him, ripped out a piece of his soul, leaving a gaping hole in his chest that he carried with him through his banishment, right next to the hole that had been burned through him by his father. Some days he did not know which wound hurt more.
With the war ended he clings to Mai, showing her the love only a heart hardened by loss and pain is capable of. Though she is still unaccustomed to it, with Zuko's time back in the Fire Nation too short to grow used to always having him around, she is certainly not overwhelmed. She plainly sees his love for her and knows it is the same as the love that burns in her heart for him. He is simply better at displaying it.
He needs me, she thinks as she gazes down at his sleeping face, the darkened skin of his scar standing out against his pale face. They are both naked, and she thinks that they are both more beautiful this way, their bodies vulnerable and scarred, rough in some places and smooth in others. She closes her eyes and thinks of what they had done hours earlier. The way his hands had roamed over the expanse of her skin, kissing and touching all that was exposed. How his hands had stopped their trail when they reached her sides, when they found the small crisscrossing lines of raised and scarred flesh, carved out by the tip of one of her many blades. His fingers had ghosted over the scars.
"Mai," he had breathed against the skin of her stomach, a sigh that passed over his lips with sadness. His lips followed his fingers. "Mai," he said again, a whisper. She had grasped his face between her palms, turning his eyes up toward her own. His eyes appeared glassy, and she had faintly registered that there were tears forming in hers. He had kissed her then, hard and bruising and so very warm, pouring his emotions into her and filling her with the fire that runs through his veins.
"I love you," he had repeated over and over, holding her as his lips moved from her face to her neck.
She smiles now as she recalls the way they had made love, the way he had instinctively nestled against her chest after.
Maybe I need him too, Mai thinks as she drifts off, joining Zuko in sleep.