Her maid ( Shirase, isn't her name Shirase? Her mother recommended her so she probably mentioned it, but now Mai cannot seem to recall anything at all, let alone the girl's name) draws the curtains tightly and puts a cup filled to the brim with hot spiced milk on the bedside table before untangling Mai's hair, brushing it exactly twenty times and then leaving the bedroom quietly.
She's good, this one, Mai has to admit that. Not a single unnecessary word or a movement. Pretty long locks. Give her a year or two and she'll fly away from the palace to some minor noble's chamber, that's for sure. Maybe she'll even score the main price and the ring, who knows.
After Shirase-or-whatever is gone, Mai sits silently for a while on the bed, with her hands laced on her stomach. The skin stretches in various places, little bumps forming underneath the material of her bathrobe as a tiny foot or a head presses from the inside. She half wishes she could smooth all those up; half is so glad they are here that it's even hard to describe.
She counts the strikes of the clock; five, ten, fifteen minutes, and, with a pained groan, raises up.
With Zuko gone, doing Agni knows what, Agni knows where, Mai has taken to wandering aimlessly around the palace at night, barefoot and wrapped in red silk. Baby keeps her awake, kicking and moving around until the dawn restlessly so often, that she sometimes thinks she will give birth to a waterbender, for how the moon influences it.
As the weeks pass, the dark circles underneath her eyes turn purple against her pale complexion and servants whisper – of course they do, do they have anything else to do with Fire Lord away, anyway? It's no surprise they call her a ghost, for she must resemble one at the dead of the night on the empty corridors. They also talk about family curses and vengeful spirits of previous rulers and maybe there is some truth in that, for she is not sure it's completely stupid – but with time, she finds that she doesn't really mind staying-up so late. She naps plenty during the day, curled in the too-big bed when it's warmed by the sunlight. At night it's just too cold, this endless sea of silk illuminated in the moonlight. At rare occasions when she manages to fall asleep, she dreams of drowning in the arctic sea, breath frozen in her lungs.
So, she walks instead.
She often makes a stop at the kitchen, always asking the same timid woman twice her age for a bowl of late autumn plums. They've already been her favorite before but now she just can't get enough. As she bites into the plump, yellow flesh, she thinks about how, when they were kids, Ty Lee used to climb the trees in the Royal Gardens to pick them for her, swift and sleek like a bat squirrel.
Poor Ty Lee didn't even like plums in the first place – she pretended to, that's for sure, juice spilling down her chin, all act in front of Azula – but she has always preferred fire cherries, round and pretty. And yet she would pick them for Mai, so often and so selflessly. Giving and expecting nothing in return, besides, maybe, some company, some shelter against the storm of fire of their mutual friend.
Purple plums are almost saccharine and those Mai discards – they are too soft in her mouth, leave this nasty aftertaste. But smaller ones, with yellowish skin and so hard that they don't flinch when she tries to squish them, oh, they are just perfect. Sour, so sour. Didn't she use to enjoy sweets? She can barely remember that.
It's all so eerie, so fucking pathetic; Mai, pregnant. Mai, pregnant, with her hair loose. Mai, pregnant, her hair loose, her husband away. Mai, alone.
Maybe she will send for Ty Lee. She would probably come, bearing gifts and stories about Kyoshi Warriors and her ever-present presence.
Maybe they will go pick plums again; Ty Lee upon the branches, Mai down, underneath a tree, a basket in her hands. Wouldn't that be nice? Almost like old good times, minus a person or two.
Yeah, right.
Ty Lee is happy where she is. Let's leave it like that, Mai decides.
The palace is so empty at night; only her and her wriggling baby and the endless row of paintings on the walls, all of the greatness of the Fire Nation etched on every surface. But she has always been wondering why is it so dark? Aren't fire benders supposed to rise with the sun? The golden ornaments of dragons and phoenixes gleam dimly in the light of the ever-burning light in the throne room, soft-orange now that Zuko reigns. It feels like a damn coffin, just like Omashu and Ba Sing Se and her parent's estate and every single place she's ever lived; dark, beautiful, inescapable.
There is a nook on the second floor, in one of the rooms that nobody ever uses; it's small and warm, next to the window so she can see the night sky behind it, the stars and the moon like the bright pinpricks on pinpricks on the dark material. She curls up there, caressing her stomach and singing sometimes – lullabies half-remembered from her early childhood, songs from Love Among Dragons, Fire Sages' chants, anything, everything. The baby seems to like it; it calms down, even stops moving so damn much all the time. This warm presence somewhere within her, second heart beating inside her.
She hopes it's a boy. Boys always have it easier. Underneath all their duties and expectations put on them, there is always a degree freedom to flee, as foreign to her as the thought of ever being anywhere else, with anyone else.