Sparring

by breeeliss

For Littleinfinity. Mai wasn't trying to make friends. They were simply fighting partners, and that was all. Expecting anything as personal as a serious companionship was just ridiculous. Jet x Mai.

Title: Sparring

Rating: T

Summary: For Littleinfinity. Mai wasn't trying to make friends. They were simply fighting partners, and that was all. Expecting anything as personal as a serious companionship was just ridiculous. Jet x Mai.

a/n: For Littleinfinity, who requested a Jet x Mai story (sorry this took so long for me to come out with, and I hope that you like it ^.^) Sorry that it wound up being so long but I got a little carried away.

For any die hard shippers: go easy on me. This isn't a pairing I'm very familiar with ^^; But I hope you all enjoy it anyways.

Warnings: For anyone who might be confused about timelines, this takes place between that period of time after The Chase and before the Serpent's Pass.

OOO

Sparring

OOO

Honestly, if he wasn't so good at blocking, she would have killed him already.

Treading on enemy territory didn't exactly leave one with many options besides aiming at anything that moved. She'd heard the stories of Fire Nation patrols being ambushed by Earth Kingdom rebels and took them very seriously. Not that they worried her in the least. Her advantage was speed and precision. It was exactly why Azula had handpicked her to be part of her elite team. Mai was lethal. Mai never missed. Mai would slit your neck before you could even draw your sword.

Except that didn't happen this time.

One minute she was flinging shuriken at an old oak tree, and the next she heard a small snap of tree branches behind her. It took her half a second to reach into her belt of knives hanging from her hip, clutch her knife expertly between her fingers in a way that spoke of years of training, and fling it towards the intruder without even having to look. She stopped to hear the sounds of pain or the sound of fabric ripping.

But not the sound of metal clashing.

She whirled around, another knife clutched tightly and ready to fly, but her hand stopped in mid air when she saw who was behind her.

It was a boy — probably not much older than herself. His sword was drawn in front of his face and he was darting his eyes between the blade of his hook sword and the knife lying at his feet. He laughed in nervous disbelief and looked up at her. "You're kinda lethal with those things, aren't you?"

Her hand dropped to her side and looked down at the knife that had fallen uselessly in the grass. She looked back up at the boy and the other hook sword hanging sheathed on his hip.

He was quick enough to draw his sword and block her attack.

She pocketed her second knife and stared at him in awe.

Impressive.

OOO

"So, what are you? An assassin or something?"

Mai looked up from the knife she was concentrating on sharpening and stared up at him, her eyebrows furrowing at the question.

Jet raised both his eyebrows back at her, waiting for a response. She wasn't forthcoming with a one, so he merely shrugged and looked back down at the sword that he was also sharpening.

Mai scowled and looked back down at her work. As much as she didn't want to admit it, he was good. A formidable swordsman considering he hadn't received any formal training. "Learned from an older kid I used to travel with," he had claimed, his hands hovering fondly over the sharp handles. She wasn't sure how much truth she was supposed to glean from that response, but their agreement didn't necessarily call for honesty.

He was simply a good partner to spar with. Mai was so used to dealing with benders that sparring with another non-bender was refreshing. Azula was rather liberal when it came to her Firebending and Ty Lee would do little else but dodge until she got you into a good position to paralyze you. This boy clearly had a mastery over his weapons that she had only ever seen Zuko possess.

It was funny. She couldn't remember the last time she and Zuko had sparred together. Zuko and this boy were both dual sword fighters. She expected it to be an exercise in nostalgia and familiarity. She was proven wrong of course. Zuko was very obviously classically trained. Jet had a haphazard way of handling his swords and used tactics that Mai would have never caught a properly trained master utilizing. But that didn't take away from his skill.

After all, he was quick — quick enough to block one of her knives, which was a feat in and of itself. It was great exercise. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had to sharpen her knives from over use so quickly. From the way Jet stared in awe at his dulled blades, he must have thought the same.

Mai was sharpening her third to last blade when she suddenly noticed how she must have looked. She got into the habit of leaving her Fire Nation robes back at the war tank with Azula and Ty Lee whenever she escaped into the woods to practice on her own. It was cooler to just stay in her arm sleeves, trousers, and tunic, and it prevented her from being immediately labeled as the "enemy."

But the remaining ensemble was all black and tied her to no nation in particular. If anything, it made her look like a vagrant. Someone who belonged neither here nor there. Add that in with the impressive knife work and she supposed assassin fit her quite nicely.

There was no telling where Jet was from. He offered a vague answer when asked — "I'm from the Earth Kingdom" — and didn't seem eager to offer more details. To be fair, neither was she. Besides, offering her Fire Nation heritage would probably get in the way of their agreement. She didn't imagine he'd take it well.

Mai tucked another sharpened knife into her belt and pushed her hair away from her face. "I guess assassin is a good enough word."

Jet frowned at the answer. "Good enough? You're either an assassin or you aren't."

Mai hadn't thought to put any labels on what she was because she herself didn't truly know. Her employment — for lack of a better term — under Azula was unprecedented and not technically official. Her art was a cure for boredom. It was far more productive to be formally trained in knife throwing than to simply fling the poor things at her bedroom wall all day. And despite all her threats of lethality — which she was confident were true — she hadn't technically killed anyone. Yet.

She couldn't place all that into coherent words — nor did she have any intentions to do so — so she shrugged and used her arm sleeves to polish off the blade. "No one's ever put a name to what I do, so...yeah. It's good enough."

Jet nodded. "Do you work for anyone in particular?"

Mai shrugged. "Whoever needs me."

Jet slid the sharpening stone harshly across his blade. "Fire Nation on that list?"

Mai breathed out through her nose, trying to come up with a clever sounding story that wasn't an obvious lie. "Sometimes. High profile missions. Internal. People that are MIA that need to be found. Stuff like that."

"Who's next?"

Mai fiddled with her knife and balanced it between her hands. She remembered the plan to travel to Ba Sing Se, and the details that Azula refused to offer. She answered honestly. "I don't know. I don't really know what I'm doing anymore."

Jet chuckled at that answer and sheathed his sword, pleased with the results. He reached down to his hip and unsheathed its twin. "I guess that's a relief to hear," he commented as he started to bring the stone across the blade. "I don't really know what I'm doing either."

OOO

They had a strange way of keeping score. The one with the most amount of cuts and scratches was the loser.

Mai was always at a disadvantage because her shoulders were never covered and it always left a good amount of skin showing, perfect for slicing, Jet had quickly found out. But Jet was sloppy and it was easy to cut him off and slice at something covert like his ankle or his calf.

Jet played dirty and always liked to do strange things like slide between her legs, hook his swords onto her ankles, and make her trip. The last time he did that he managed to get a good cut across her cheek. But Mai had a habit of keeping him on his toes — literally — by throwing knives at his feet, around his head, making him duck and dodge until she planted him in the perfect spot to make a knife graze his side.

Their hand to hand was always more interesting. They kept score with bruises.

Jet was a scrapper — he kept his arms close to his body with his fists always up and in front of his face. He bounced on his toes a lot, which she initially thought was strange, but she found out it was because he liked to change direction quickly and randomly in order to get in a good punch. She suspected he learned to fight from constantly getting into altercations with people who were bigger than him. He had a certain amount of instinct in hand-to-hand that she privately realized she lacked.

No one had ever really bullied her into physical fights. Mai learned from very expensive masters that her father had paid for as a reward to her for being quiet and out of the way. She knew where to grab his arm when he came in for a jab so that she could twist, duck, and punch. She knew exactly how much power to put into a kick and exactly how to turn her supporting foot so that she wouldn't lose balance. Sometimes, she depended on a highly technical moves involving high jumps and scissoring kicks that always landed across his jaw and took him by surprise. The first time she'd surprised him with it, she sent him reeling into a tree. They later decided to count the bruise she left on his chin as being worth two points.

"How many?" he panted out, falling backwards gracelessly against a tree at the end of the sparring session today. They had both gotten rid of their blades earlier in the fight than usual and had resorted to blows for most of the afternoon.

Mai winced as she sat down. Two cuts on her leg, but a large bruise forming on her side that she had to be fair and count for three points. He did a strange take down today where he actually flipped her to the ground and left her winded. She'd have to remember to look out for that in the future. Remembering the scratch he left on her back when his punch missed, Mai gasped out, "Six."

Jet winced and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Seven," he grumbled. "Guess you win. You seriously have to teach me that kick thing you did. My back's gonna be bruised up for days."

Mai actually chuckled, and when was the last time she had done that? When was the last time she enjoyed herself to laugh? "It takes years of flexibility and training."

Jet smirked, and then his teeth poked out in a cocky smile. "I'm a fast learner."

Mai rolled her eyes at his confidence, but decided to take his word for it. She learned that was the best way to deal with Jet. Let him think that his confidence was well founded. It was usually far more amusing to see him fail at his eager attempts to try something he wasn't sure would succeed in the first place. She jutted her chin at him as she reached for a pack of water. "Don't you have friends to spar with?" she asked before taking a greedy drink.

He stared up at her, tilted his head in confusion, and didn't respond. He gestured for the bottle and caught it when she threw it over to him. Mai realized that maybe the question was a poor one. They had admitted to each other early on during their arrangement that they were both travelling with others. Two friends each. Mai had no desire to meet his friends and Jet didn't seem to enthusiastic about being introduced to the companions of such a lethal woman.

However, every day they both left their companions half an hour away to come into the middle of the forest to beat the shit out of each other for the lack of anything else better to do. Personal questions were grudgingly allowed, but honesty wasn't guaranteed, nor was it to be demanded. No following the other back to their camp. No asking the other's final destination. No guarantee of anything as serious as a friendship.

It seemed to suit them fine, but sometimes they straddled strange lines of inquiry that weren't technically unallowed, but warranted care.

Jet guzzled the water and wiped his mouth before answering. "They're not as good as you. Besides, I can get away with taking the shit out of a stranger. Taking the shit out of your friends is a little dangerous. Not conducive to pleasant conversation, you get me?"

Mai relented that point and nodded. The same could be said of her friends. Ty Lee wasn't a fighter — not really — and Azula wasn't one for useless fighting just for the sake of it. To be honest, neither was Mai until she met Jet. She didn't realize how much energy she needed to get out every day. Like something was always building up, and she needed to take it out on someone. Someone who didn't have a hold over her.

"Still," Mai commented, asking for the water back. She caught it and spilled a little of it into the fabric of her arm sleeves. She pressed it into her side to clean her cuts. "You seem to really like attacking me. Pent up frustration?"

Jet leered at her. "Maybe I just like you," he teased.

Mai scowled and threw the water back, roughly this time. Jet winced when he caught it and shook out his hands from the force. "Funny," she replied. "That almost sounded like a compliment."

Jet laughed and applied the water to his own wounds. "You ask me that, but then you freak the hell out on me too. I mean, come on, these bruises are gonna hurt like a bitch tomorrow. Pent up frustration?" he mimicked her question.

He sounded like he was kidding, but she knew he didn't really have an answer he wanted to admit out loud any more than she did.

OOO

It had started raining in the middle of one of their fights.

The sky had opened up all of a sudden, no drizzle to serve as a warning. Maybe it was starting to get dark and cloudy beforehand, but Mai honestly couldn't remember or not. She was too busy dodging Jet's sword.

Jet had shown up angry. Angry about what, Mai didn't want to know, nor did she ask. There were days after a nasty argument with Azula when she showed up to meet Jet and really laid into him, leaving with him with injuries that lasted a couple of days afterwards. The two of them had been travelling across the Earth Kingdom for close to two and a half weeks, and Mai was sort of surprised that his temper hadn't flared out sooner. Spirits knew, she had a lot of bad days where she really needed to fling a knife at something or punch someone in the side.

So she was in no hurry to interrupt him and let him get out his frustrations as well. There was no way of knowing what they were or whether they were justified, but it didn't matter. Mai figured that if he was willing to put up with her garbage, she'd be willing to do the same for him.

At first, it was great. For some reason, he was a little bit more haphazard but a lot more dangerous when he was angry, which suited Mai just fine. Something about having to actually roll out of the way when one of his swords got too close to her neck for comfort was rather thrilling. It was a nice change of pace from the monotonous travelling she was doing with the princess and with Ty Lee, and even a change of pace from the careful and respectful camaraderie they usually had when they were fighting.

This felt real, and Mai wasn't about to get in the way of that.

But fighting in the rain was another story altogether. It made throwing her knives extremely difficult, and she also noticed that Jet was straining to see through all the rain. Mai had two senbon needles pinched between her knuckles and was about to fling them in Jet's direction, but she wasn't sure they were going to land, and Jet was starting to look fatigued as he blinked the water out of his eyes.

Mai brushed her wet bangs back and away from her face. "We can stop, you know," she said, speaking a little louder than normal so that she could be heard over the rain.

Jet stared up at the sky, shook his own hair out of his face, and swiped it back. Jet sheathed his swords, but removed the belt they were hanging on before flinging them at the base of the tree to his left. He brought his hands up and gestured to himself. "Come on."

Mai looked at him as if he were stupid. "Are you serious?"

Jet shrugged. "Too slow." He lunged forward and swung out a punch that narrowly missed Mai's jaw. Mai stumbled backwards, not expecting him to attack so quickly, but decided that if he was still interested in fighting in piss poor weather, than she supposed she was going to have to play along.

She lifted a hand up while she unclipped her belts of knives and flung them back where Jet's swords were. Mai's foot slid back into a fighting stance and braced herself when Jet came running towards her.

It was harder to fight in the rain. They were fighting on grass, and sometimes one of them slipped and landed hard on the ground before getting up and going at it again. It was hard to blink the water out of your eyes, and the mud that was collecting on the ground began to stick to their clothes and shoes. If anything, Mai was starting to feel how difficult it was to move around and maneuver the way she wanted. Her clothes were completely soaked through and they clung to her skin in a way that made it difficult to crouch down quickly or do anything too complicated. Jet was going through a similar strain.

It finally caught up to them when Mai lunged to the ground to try and use her foot to swipe Jet's feet out from under him, but wound up slipping forward and landing on her hip instead. Her feet knocked against Jet's shins and he would up toppling down to the ground as well, his shoulder connected with the ground right next to her.

Mai was about to stand back up and continue with it, but Jet surprised her by kicking her in the back and sending her sprawling across the muddy grass. She cried out and hissed when she felt his foot connect and she knew that she wasn't going to be able to rest easy tonight. She got up on her knees, felt her teeth gnash, and lunged forward.

She shoved his shoulders back into the dirt, pulled her arm back, and landed a punch right against Jet's jaw. There was no point in trying to fight properly in this weather, and if Jet wanted to take cheap shots, then she wasn't going to try and be fair about any of this either.

Pretty soon, it turned into a wrestling match between the two of them with Jet flipping her to the ground and Mai knocking Jet onto his back and Jet trying to pin Mai down by her shoulders and Mai bringing a knee up to Jet's gut to kick him off again. They were rolling around on the ground, and Mai was getting mud and rain and grass all over her hair and clothes, but she wasn't about to give into the fight, and she knew that Jet wasn't about to relent either.

Clearly this was something he needed.

Mai couldn't tell how long they were fighting on the ground like this — taking cheap shots and shoving each other to the ground and wrestling out of holds — but eventually Jet managed to get a lucky kick to the side of Mai's head and she immediately felt her brain rattling and her vision blurring for a few seconds. She fell to her side and tried to shake off the disorientation, but Jet was already on top of her pinning her arms into the grass.

It felt like the buckle of Jet's boot had dug right into her temple, and sure enough she could see blood dripping onto her chest and being washed off by all the rain. Jet was lording over her looking incredibly self satisfied and suddenly the fact that he managed to knock the sense out of her for a few seconds angered her. Before he got the sense that he won, Mai lifted her chin and snapped her head forward, crashing her forehead against Jet's nose.

She'd never done that before — only heard of a story Jet told her where he was forced to resort to it in a fight — and realized that it hurt. She felt the pain ringing through her forehead, but saw with a smirk that Jet's hands immediately flew to his nose. He was pinching it between two fingers, trying to stop the flow of blood coming from one of his nostrils.

"What the fuck!?" he cried out over the downpour.

"You kicked me in the side of the head, you could've knocked me out!" Mai shouted back.

"You almost broke my nose!" Jet countered.

"I'll consider breaking it for real if you don't calm down!" Mai screamed back at him. She had limits, and almost being knocked out by a rogue kick was one of them.

Jet didn't seem to get the message because he immediately scrambled towards her and flipped her onto her back again. Her head smacked into a puddle and she immediately felt her nose fill with water. Mai lifted her head, coughed out the liquid, and snarled at the man above her. She curled a leg around one of his own and flipped him over as well, hearing his head smack against a pile of mud that had collected as a result of their fighting.

Jet growled at the sensation and used the momentum of Mai's flip to push her backwards again. Her head connected with the ground roughly this time, and her head got rattled around for a few seconds, similar to the previous kick. At this rate, she was going to wake up with a migraine in the morning. The second blow to the head distracted her, and before she knew it Jet was pushing her arms into the ground again, keeping her pinned.

His knees came on either side of her own, and he pressed them together so that she couldn't lift a leg to try and push him off of her. Mai thought about struggling and trying to pull herself free, but she was suddenly starting to feel the fatigue of the fight in her entire body and decided that there was no use in trying to keep this going. They were both close to seriously hurting the other one soon.

Jet was panting above her, his nose still bleeding, and rain dripping from his hair and onto Mai's face. It took her a few moments to realize that his face was close enough that he could feel his labored breaths furling against her nose. Had she not been so tired, she probably would have shoved him off, but she couldn't find the energy for it. Instead she swallowed, and spoke over the rain. "Feel better?"

Jet stared at her curiously, but then laughed and hung his head. He shook it back and forth a little, and swallowed roughly. "A little bit," he forced out. "But then again, not really."

Mai raised her brow, hoping that he would elaborate, but instead Jet did something incredibly strange. He sighed out and leaned down to rest his forehead against Mai's shoulder, burying his face in her shirt.

The noble stared at the back of his head and was about to push him off or at the very least tell him to rest somewhere else. But she saw his shoulders tensing and felt his fingers squeezing and loosening her arms like he was trying hard to hold something back and not let her see anything.

She didn't touch him while he laid there and figured through whatever it is that wound up bothering him today. But she couldn't tell him to get off of her. It just didn't seem right.

Because while she didn't dare ask him to see if she was right, she was almost sure that his shoulders were shaking. Like he was trying not to cry.

Mai immediately closed her eyes and rolled them behind her lids. Spirits, she wasn't good at this sort of thing. She was absolutely rubbish with this sort of thing. She could barely talk to Ty Lee when she was like this and they'd known each other for years. But this wasn't Ty Lee crying because Azula hurt her feelings and she needed validation. Now that Jet's anger seemed to be all spent, there was nothing left but...this. For someone like Jet, playful, sarcastic, and just a bit infuriating, this was downright unsettling.

Mai lifted her head, which was still spinning from all the blows it took, and nudged his temple with her chin. He turned slightly so that only one eye was showing. It was impossible to see whether there were tears in this rain, but she knew a tortured look when she saw one. Oh man, she really didn't know what to do.

She appraised him for a moment and noticed that his nose was still bleeding heavily. It was staining her shirt but Mai couldn't really bring herself to care or bother with it at the moment. Still, she may not have been very good at dealing with other people's feelings, but the least she could do was stop all that bleeding.

She flexed her arms underneath his grip. "Come on. Get up," Mai said softly.

He did so as if he were more than happy to follow orders. Mai sat up, squeezed her hands to get some circulation back to her arms, and looked around. There wasn't much in the way of shelter being in the middle of the woods, but there was a particularly large tree a few yards ahead of them with enough foliage to offer a decent amount of cover from the rain.

Mai stood to her feet and grabbed Jet's elbow, pulling him along behind her. He wasn't attempting to speak or explain his actions, and Mai found that even more curious. Jet was never particularly violent, at least not towards her, not like this. Now he was perfectly civil — even obedient. It was difficult to keep up with what was going through his head.

She sat him down against the tree and started to sort through her pockets for the cloth that she usually used to polish her knives with. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing. At this rate, Jet was looking like he was getting a little dizzy from all the blood still dripping down his nose. Mai stuck her hand out and wet the cloth with some of the rainwater coming down. She shook it out, sat down in front of Jet and handed him the cloth.

"Here," she offered. "Pinch the soft part of your nose, keep your head down, and don't let go. Let me know when it stops bleeding."

"Thanks," Jet mumbled under his breath. He looked up at her, his eyes still a little swollen and red. "Does it look really bad?"

"It'll probably just hurt like hell tomorrow," Mai promised. "You'll be fine." She paused for a moment sighed. "Sorry about that, by the way."

"I should be the one apologizing," Jet corrected. He pointed to her head while he put the cloth over his nose. "I think I left a gash on the side of your head."

Mai frowned and brought a hand up, prodding the place that was still throbbing. She felt around her hairline and brushed a finger across a small, shallow cut near her temple. It didn't seem serious, so she shrugged it off. "It probably looks worse than it is. It doesn't feel too bad. It's fine."

Jet nodded and squeezed his nose tighter. "Right…"

He wasn't looking at Mai. In fact, he looked like he was trying to look at everything except for her. Mai sighed sufferably and looked back out at the rain that was all around them. Well, there certainly wasn't any walking back to camp in that downpour. She'd get lost for sure. They were both stuck here until the rain let up, and she didn't feel like spending it in such think silence. Knowing that she was going to regret doing so, she straightened up and asked, "So what was that about?"

Jet grinned sadly. "What was what about?"

"Don't play dumb with me," Mai deadpanned. "You almost kicked my head off, nearly broke my spine, and then you started sobbing into my shoulder. What's up?"

But Jet was shaking his head. "Look just...forget about it. I had a bad day."

Mai scoffed. "You think? I'm not going to be able to move tomorrow."

"You never complained about the bruises and cuts before!" Jet replied defensively. "That was the whole point of...whatever it is we've been doing."

Mai leaned in closer to him. "Whatever that was," she corrected, pointing to the field behind her, "was way more personal than just letting off some steam and you know it. I'm not good at this sentimental garbage, and we've only known each other a couple of weeks...but you owe me some kind of explanation."

Jet took the cloth off of his nose and glared at Mai. "I don't know what to tell you!" he replied in frustration. "I don't know what happened."

Well, one thing wa for sure. Cheering up Ty Lee was a hell of a lot easier than this. The girl was always willing to talk about her issues and just needed a positive comment about anything really and she was back to sorts. Jet was certainly a lot more frustrating to deal with. She reached for his hand and lifted it back up to his nose. Jet rolled his eyes and pinched his nose again. "Stop having a tantrum," Mai replied patiently, even though she felt that patience slowly starting to seep away. "Start from the beginning."

Jet let out a huge breath, as if the mere idea of speaking seemed like this pressing weight that he didn't know how to begin to handle. Mai waited patiently, sitting in front of him, checking his nose every so often to see if the bleeding had stopped, and telling him to keep putting pressure on it. She wasn't sure if she was meant to be pressing for him to hurry up and talk, or to be respecting his desire to be silent. She hoped that saying nothing was the right move. Giving him space. Something like that.

It was a few minutes before Jet collected enough words to speak. "I kind of...well, not kind of. I did screw up pretty badly very recently," he began. "Wanted something bad enough...something that I thought was going to be good for me. But I wound up almost hurting a lot of people, and nearly losing everyone I cared about. I only have two friends left — the only ones who wanted to stay with me after that."

Jet laughed. "Thing is I lost a lot when I was a kid too. And I keep losing things. But my friend…" he paused for a moment and tried to get his thoughts together. "Let's just say she seemed to be of the impression that I'm never going to change. And I'm going to keep losing things until I have nothing...and I'm alone. And...I don't know, I guess I thought she was right. I was angry, and upset, and confused, and it was just before I came to meet you today and I just…" Jet trailed off and looked down at his knees.

Mai frowned and rested her elbows on her knees, cradling her chin in her palm. "You made a mistake and you're worried you're going to keep making that mistake until it ruins everything you have. So just stop making the mistake."

Jet shrugged. "That's the thing," he confided. "It's not just that I made a mistake. At the time...I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was living out my purpose. Now...it's like I don't know what to do. I don't know what's right, or what's going to keep me from ruining everything all over again." Jet started running his fingers through the grass underneath and plucking out the blades by his feet. "I don't know what I am or what I should be doing. And I don't want to lose anything anymore," he said resolutely with a thick quality to his voice. "I can't lose anything else. I have to get it right this time."

The noble didn't say anything in response at first, mainly because something about what Jet said reminded her so much of something that Zuko told her a few days before he was banished from the Fire Nation on his search for the Avatar. It was about his need to stop losing so much of his life and having to get his life "right." It was his final chance, and should be fail everything would be lost for good and he'd truly have nothing. She thought of him now, probably a vagrant hiding from the Fire Nation after having lost that opportunity. She wondered if it was true. If he had truly lost everything in an irredeemable way.

She decided that it was complete garbage.

"Look, no one knows what they're doing or who they are," Mai said suddenly. "And if they say they do, they're lying. I don't even know who I am or what I'm doing," she replied in a rare show of honesty. "I'm just trying to keep myself occupied, but I have no clue what I'm going to do when the distraction runs out." That much was abysmally obvious to her, and for some reason she felt like she was starting to defend herself and talk herself up in addition to Jet.

"But you know that what you were was wrong and that you make a mistake," she continued. Mai reached up and nudged his chin up so that he was looking straight at her. "Weren't you the one that said you were making a new life for yourself?" she asked him. "If you know what you shouldn't be, and you know you have to change, what else is there for you to do but try something else? If it fails, try again. If it doesn't, fine. There's no "right" way to live life. Trust me."

Jet kept her gaze on her for a long moment until Mai realized she was still holding his chin. She blinked quickly and immediately snatched her hand back, tucking it into the crook of her elbow. She cleared her throat and looked back out towards the rest of the forest. It was still raining. Damn. "Not that I'm an expert or anything…" she trailed off.

Laughter flowed easily out of Jet's mouth and her took the cloth off of his nose again. He bent at the waist from the effort of it and smiled sunnily at Mai's disapproving glare. "You know...that's the most you've ever said to me since we've met. I must be dreaming..."

Mai rolled her eyes. "You ask for advice and then you make fun of me when I give it? What the hell are you even getting at?"

Jet waved his hands in front of him. "No, no, I'm not making fun of you it's just…" he trailed off into chuckles again. "I dunno...I didn't expect such a good answer. You should try and pull me out of my funks more often." Jet wrinkled his nose and started prodding the side of it. "Is it better now?"

Mai moved herself closer to Jet so that she could get a better look at his nose. She frowned when she twisted his face back and forth to ascertain any damage. "If I start doing that, it's going to turn into a full time job. Personally, I'd rather find something else better to do with my time than to serve as your pick-me-up." Mai clicked her tongue against her teeth a couple of times. "It's stopped bleeding, but I can't tell if you seriously did anything wrong to it. It's probably just going to bruise."

Jet smiled. "Thank you, nurse."

Mai reached over and slammed her fist into his thigh, making him bite his lip and wince. "I swear to the Spirits, you are completely intolerable."

"Come on, I can't be that bad if you willingly spend time with me," Jet pointed out. Mai was still observing his injuries when he finally let his smile shrink a little bit until he was staring at her with a soft sort of look on his face. "You have nice eyes, by the way."

Mai's hands stilled on Jet's face and she blinked at the compliment. Her eyes darted to meet his for a moment and she was momentarily stilled by the way he was looking at her. "Is this you trying to use flattery to get on my good side again?" she asked incredulously.

"I wish you'd quit thinking that I'd actually try and lie about your looks to get you to like me," Jet pointed out. "I feel like that wouldn't work on you, anyway. I was just making an observation. I haven't seen you this up close before. Just noticed is all."

Mai never really paid much attention to her eyes. A lot of nobles in the northern Fire Nation had a lot of light colored eyes — mixes of gold, amber, and hazel. It wasn't a particularly unique eye color back at home. Though she supposed that here in the Earth Kingdom is must look rather exotic.

She looked quickly at Jet's eyes. Dark, dark brown. Not even Ty Lee's eyes were that dark. She'd heard that commoners in the Earth Kingdom had particularly dark eye colors, moreso than anyone else in other nations. She hadn't looked at Jet this closely before either. He had interesting eyes...

She felt Jet smile against her hand. "You're staring."

Mai scowled and looked down at the grass underneath her. "I wasn't."

Jet moved his cheek. "You're still holding my face."

Mai groaned out loud and snatched her hand back again. Why did she keep doing that? "I was just making sure your nose wasn't broken, you idiot."

Jet nodded resolutely. "Of course. Stupid me," he grinned.

"You know, you should be happy I've helped you so much today," Mai pointed out in annoyance. "I could have just walked home in the rain."

"But you didn't," Jet pointed out. He reached out and pushed away some of the hair that was sticking to Mai's temple. "Your head is bleeding again."

"It's fine, it'll stop soon enough," Mai insisted.

But Jet was already tearing off a part of his shirt that had ripped early on in their fight when she had gotten him with one of her knives. He reached out from underneath the shelter of the tree to damped the portion of his shirt under the rainwater, and pressed it to the side of her head. He held her chin to keep her head steady and smirked. "It'll stop quicker if you put pressure on it. Head wounds bleed a lot."

There didn't seem to be any point in trying to stop him, so Mai allowed it. Besides, it was starting to hurt a little less now that there was something on it. She noticed the two fingers that Jet was pressing gently to the side of her chin so that he could keep her head facing in his direction, and realized that it was entirely unnecessary since she could very well keep still all on her own. But she decided not to say anything about that either. For reasons she couldn't quite understand, it felt nice to be fawned over like this. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had actually taken the time to sit down with her and do something like tend to her wounds for her.

Jet was very close to her now. She saw his Adam's apple bob when he swallowed nervously before saying, "Thanks, by the way. For...what you said. I needed that."

Mai smirked. "Don't mention it," she replied. "You'd have probably done the same for me, now that I think about it."

Jet grinned. "Really? Then you know what this makes us, right?"

"You're going to say something sentimental aren't you?" Mai winced when he brushed away more dried blood from her temple.

Jet leaned in closer — and damn it if that didn't make her heart trip over a beat for whatever reason — and smiled conspiratorially. "It makes us friends. Can you imagine?"

Mai scoffed. No, she honestly couldn't imagine. If there was one thing she was expecting out of this voyage to the Earth Kingdom, it was to make a friend out a stranger she'd met in the middle of the woods. "Don't say that," she warned. "You do realize we're going to have to split up soon? You're heading to Full Moon Bay. I'm heading straight for the Ba Sing Se walls. We'll maybe have a day of travelling before we'll have to part ways. No more sneaking off to meet in undisclosed locations."

Jet was cleaning the blood that had dripped down her cheek. "You make it sound like we're estranged lovers meeting in secret."

Mai rolled her eyes. She didn't have the energy for his flirtatious jokes. "You know what I mean."

Jet shrugged and finished cleaning off her face. However, his hands on either side of her face didn't move. "Proximity isn't a requirement for a friendship," he explained. "Yeah, we're probably gonna have to part ways pretty soon, but doesn't change the fact that we're friends. This — whatever you want to call this — was fun while it lasted." He took one of her hands, turned it over face up, and placed the cloth he was using to clean her wound in her hand. "You are a damn interesting person, let me tell you," he teased.

Mai didn't know why that made her smile — a genuine, honest to the Spirits smile that she didn't even think she could make anymore without it looking forced or bitter — but she definitely felt that the comment deserved. Maybe it was because she was so used being seen as obedient or useful or dangerous or conventional. Never interesting. Like she was good, honest company. Like she was a fascinating person and not just a proper warrior or daughter. She could easily get used to hearing that more often. It was almost a shame they weren't going in the same direction.

She shrugged her shoulder lazily. "I guess so," she mumbled for lack of anything better to say. "You're completely different compared to the people I usually hang out with. Take that as a good thing or a bad thing as per your discretion."

Jet grinned widely and surprised her again. He took the hand that he was still holding in his own, turned it over again so that the back of it was facing up, and placed a very quick kiss against her knuckles. It didn't linger, and he didn't make it look lascivious — it was just a simple kiss on the back of her hand. But for some reason her eyes widened only a tad, her heart did that tripping thing again, and she hoped that the color of her face wasn't showing any indication of how much he shocked her. "I'll take that as a good thing, if you don't mind."

There was a moment's hesitation before Mai brought her hand up and placed the cloth to the side of her head herself. She was scowling at him, hoping that the expression covered up her embarrassment. "You do what you want, anyway. Why am I even surprised?"

"People tend to find that admirable," Jet defended with a mock frown.

"Yeah, keep listening to those people," Mai said. "They might even convince you that you're cheap sarcasm is actually funny."