Notes
THUNK
Zuko dreaded the sound of THUNK.
THUNK was the herald of death, of destruction, of being forced to sleep on the divan in his own Royal Fire Bedroom. THUNK foretold a stretch of silence and subsonic growling that could last until the end of time, or at least until his Royal Fire Dinner was served. THUNK was a warning that his own bloody, painful end was yet delayed solely because someone had decided that stabbing a blade into a chunk of wood was more fun that stabbing it into his Royal Fire Body, but at any moment the chunk of wood might lose its amusing nature and then Zuko's body would be the only other option.
THUNK, basically, meant that Zuko's Royal Fire Betrothed was in a bad mood.
On learning that, Zuko was sure that every man on the planet would instantly understand his dread of THUNK.
The THUNK in question was coming from Mai's 'office,' which was really just a small room that her uncle had used for storage until Mai decided that she needed her own place in which to write. Zuko was in Mai's uncle's (Zuko resolved to find out the man's name) house and approaching the office in an attempt to have a moment of quality time with his betrothed before he put on the Royal Fire Crown and pretended he had an attention span capable of handling the Royal Fire Annual Budget. Mai was normally not a morning person, and so Zuko had figured that he'd be able to wake her up and laugh at her bed hair, but this morning she must have been struck by inspiration and got up to implement some plot idea or another.
On the other hand, if Mai was in an inspired mood, then there shouldn't have been any THUNKs coming from the other side of the office's door.
Gathering up all the same courage that had once enabled Zuko to confront his abusive father and confess his intentions to commit high treason, Zuko stepped forward and knocked on the door.
THUNK
Zuko nearly jumped out of his skin when the THUNK sounded from the exact spot where his knuckles had rapped against the door, and that was an especially dangerous thing because Zuko's skin around his left eye was a massive burn scar and people might not recognize him without it. Zuko waited to see if any more THUNKs were going to make it clear that his presence was not welcome, but there came only the sound of silence (which was actually a vague ringing in Zuko's bad ear and the distant tittering of the servants who found Zuko's respect-slash-fear for his betrothed to be the most hilarious thing they had ever seen) and so he knocked again. This time, instead of a THUNK, Zuko heard a sigh that was apparently loud enough to be audible through the closed door, and a familiar voice grunting, "Come in." Zuko hadn't been aware that two separate words could be grunted like that in one breath, but if anyone could find a way, it would be the love of his Royal Fire Life, Mai.
Zuko opened the door, and found said love of his life hunched over her writing desk. Her hair was unmade yet, hanging down and loose but with a certain puffiness that hadn't yet been combed out of it, and she was wearing her favorite robe. Normally, such a sight would have been utterly adorable (not that Zuko was sure that calling his betrothed 'adorable' wouldn't put his life in some kind of danger), but there were deep circles under Mai's eyes, and she was scowling at the paper in front of her. Recognizing Zuko, she said, "Oh, it's you," and went back to stabbing a stiletto into the surface of her desk.
THUNK
THUNK
THUNK
Zuko resisted the urge to give a nervous swallow. He was familiar with both the exact timbre of those THUNKs and this state of affairs in general, more familiar than any human being should have to be.
This was every bit as bad as the original THUNK had predicted.
Mai had writer's block.
Rallying all the courage that he had previously summoned for another suicidal charge at the enemy, Zuko smiled at his betrothed and pretended that he wasn't scared for his life. "Good morning. Doing a bit of writing, I see."
Mai growled and THUNK'd her knife into the surface of the table again.
Zuko wasn't entirely sure why Mai had taken up writing. She had never been much of a reader, or else so much of her life wouldn't have been such a struggle against boredom, and she had never so much as kept a diary in her youth. Zuko had always been under the impression that Mai was rather disdainful of the arts, or at least those arts that didn't contribute towards the manufacture of quality bladed weapons. And yet one day, about a month after their absolutely last Royal Fire Break-Up, she had procured a brush, some ink, and a few sheets of paper, and spent an afternoon writing. Even more surprising, it had been fiction.Granted, it was a rather simplistic and unpleasant story about a teenage girl who took up ancient Sun Warrior witchcraft for kicks and then was murdered by her parents because she was too much of an embarrassment to the family, but Zuko could tell that it had come directly from Mai's heart.
Mai's heart had words in it and she wanted to express them to the rest of the world.
The thought still made Zuko dizzy.
Mai had kept on writing, and even thought Zuko doubted that her material would ever amount to much, she had ramped up her output and he had done whatever he could to encourage the hobby. And so at this moment in time so he chose to ignore the latest THUNK and said, "What's giving you trouble? Maybe I can help."
Mai turned to look at him again with an expression that Zuko would have sworn was outright hostile in its blackness, but then she sighed again and wilted in her seat. "Okay."
Zuko hid his relief and gave Mai his best Royal Fire Encouraging Smile.
She motioned at the paper in front of her. "I'm writing some notes for a story I got an idea for. You know how I like to work out my ideas by writing my thoughts as they come to me? Well, I got this great idea this morning. It's a love story, only instead of the boy and the girl knowing that they're going to get married from the very beginning and just working to make it happen, I thought that it would be interesting if they couldn't be together because their families hated each other. That would be pretty interesting, right?"
Zuko nodded and managed to keep a straight face. Not being much of a reader, she apparently didn't realize that her idea was in fact a tale as old as storytelling itself. He'd find a way to sneak her a few hints later.
Mai reached over to where her stiletto was buried into the desk and caressed the handle. "Well, I've got most of the plot worked out, I think. It all came easily to me. Basically, the boy and the girl keep trying to get together for some kissing but every time they do their families show up too and get into a fight. So far, I've got plans for eight of the cast to get stabbed, and I might need to add more when I do the actual writing."
Zuko nodded again. Mai loved putting stabbings in her stories, and Zuko supported Mai's happiness, especially when it meant she wasn't stabbing him.
"But now I'm stopped dead. I don't know how to end it. I was going to have the girl cuss out both families and then stab herself to death, and the boy would be alone for the rest of his life, but... it doesn't feel right."
Zuko finally allowed himself to show some surprise and let his jaw drop. This was something new. Mai loved to write stories that ended anti-climactically with someone, usually the female lead, getting stabbed to death. "What doesn't feel right about it?"
"I don't know." She grabbed her knife, yanked it out of the desk's surface, and then THUNK'd it back down again. "That was a lie, I know exactly what's wrong." She looked up at Zuko again, and her brow was heavily creased. "It just doesn't seem fair. I'm putting these two kids through all kinds of torture, and there's no payoff. I've done lots of stories that show how unfair life is, but... those are just little short stories. This will be long, and having the love fail at the end after all those troubles is just pointless. But I don't know how to get the boy and the girl together! They've been losing to their families the entire story, and it would be stupid if they suddenly win without a new take on the situation." She let loose with another THUNK of her knife, and added, "I just don't think I know enough about what people consider romantic to make this work. When I'm with you, I pretty much make it up as I go, and everyone but you seems to think that I'm hardly ideal girlfriend material (but they're all stupid)."
Zuko could hardly believe his Royal Fire Ears. His friends liked to rib him for being unobservant and he didn't exactly appreciate that, but even he just couldn't believe that he actually knew Mai better than she knew herself. Did she really believe that she didn't understand anything about the poetic expression of love? "Mai, what are you talking about? You know exactly how this story is supposed to end!"
"No, I don't. I know it may not seem that way to non-writers like you, but I'm really not that creative. I just take things that I know from life and change some of the words." She stood up, and glared down at her notes with visible hatred. "I don't even know why I'm writing this! I don't even like love stories, unless I can make fun of them." She snapped over to grab the knife again, and hoisted it to drive it straight through her notes with the Royal Fire Mother of all THUNKs-
-when Zuko grabbed her arm and stopped that THUNK aborning.
Mai looked at him with surprise, and Zuko met her stare with a Royal Fire Smile. "Mai, what are you talking about? You've lived this. Maybe it wasn't our families, exactly, but weren't we kept apart by all kinds of things? My banishment, my guilt over my actions, your loyalty to the Fire Nation, and your fear of Azula? And how did that plot resolve itself?"
She blinked. "I... I..."
"You made," Zuko said, "a grand romantic gesture!"
"...grand?"
"Yes. You finally decided, at the most important moment in the story of us together, that you wanted to stand up to all the forces that kept us apart." Zuko let go of Mai's arm and it fell near-lifelessly at her side. Even though her fingers kept a solid grip on the knife, Zuko knew he was in no danger of a stabbing or a THUNK or even a sour expression. "And because you're you, you did it with knives and you took out an entire guard force all by yourself! You did it so well that even Azula couldn't stop you."
Mai's lips quirked like she wanted to smile, but it didn't quite manifest yet. "She almost did. If it weren't for Ty Lee..."
Zuko nodded, and his own smile shrunk away. "And I was powerless to help. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. But that 'grand romantic gesture' of yours was so perfect that even throwing away my life to be with you in death would have ruined the impact. That's how powerful it was, what you did." He held out his hands, and said, "How is that not a scene worth writing a story around? Although, your dialogue could have used a little work. I wasn't trying to be a jerk, and I didn't exactly dump you..."
Mai stared at him for a while. Then she looked back down at her notes, her eyes scanning back and forth as she read what she had written so far. Then she smiled- that rare, beautiful, genuine smile she liked to hide from the world- and melted back down into her seat. "You're right, except about my witty lines. That's all good stuff. I need to write it down before I forget all the details. Then I'm going back to bed; it's too early for all this drama."
Zuko couldn't help but give one of his own exceedingly rare Royal Fire Chuckles. She probably would have protested the label, but his knife-wielding maniac of a girlfriend was just so cute when she was inspired. He turned to go, to leave her to her writing, but then he heard a rustle of silk robes and precise hands grabbed his shirt.
"Wait," she said, and spun Zuko around.
Before he could ask what she needed, her lips were mashed against his, and suddenly they were kissing with all the enthusiasm and intensity that Mai had just been funneling into her writing. The kiss built up heat as went like a good romance, absorbing the warmth of their bodies and emotions to sustain itself, becoming a blaze equaled only by the sun in the sky. They sank back towards the desk, scattering Mai's notes with their landing, and Zuko couldn't help but think that all the grand romance stories would be a lot better if they included real passion like this.
Then a knock came from the office's door, and the voice of one of the servants called through, "Fire Lord Zuko, a messenger from the Royal Fire Palace is here! He say's you're going to be late for your budget meeting!"
Zuko felt Mai's arm move behind him, and then they were back in their kiss. The last he knew of the world outside their embrace was the sound of the stiletto burying itself in the door.
THUNK
END