I own nothing...least of all the Avatar characters.
CALLIGRAPHY AND READING
Zuko was reading a scroll on Ba Sing Sa in one of the many courtyards. The wall surrounding it was of pure marble and was risen for him to lean against a pillar as if it were a comfortable chair.
Tree branches were spouting their leaves, forcing the once beautiful blossoms to leave. Most of the pink, purple, and white blooms carpeted the grass. Petals would catch individually in the wind and lazily float down to their final resting place.
Looking up from his particularly boring scroll; he noticed Mai was leaning against the wall five yards down from where he was siting. Her left shoulder blade was against the wall as her right was free for motion. He could see the profile of her face as she would look from the same tree branch to the pamphlet in her hand.
Zuko found himself transfixed in watching the motion of the brush in her hand. It was held completely vertical, her hand not even skimming the page. It seemed so sure in it's steady lines it wove across the page.
She must have felt his stare, fore her eyes met his and she lifted a corner of her mouth. Instead of breaking eye contact, he nodded and each continued what they had previously been doing.
Zuko soon finished the scroll and rolled it up, placing it into the stack he had already read. Grabbing the fourth, he glanced at Mai, who was packing up her ink stones and brushes. The paper held on top of her pamphlet of the rest of the blank paper.
She was walking towards her sleeping quarters, across the opposite diagonal away from him.
"Mai!" He called out to her before she left the courtyard.
Her eyes skimmed his as she now walked over to him, hearing her give a slight sigh.
"I would like to see your art." He said to her, trying to make it sound like he was asking instead of demanding.
She bowed respectively and handed him the scroll.
Untying the satin ribbon, he opened the scroll to see a beautiful replica of one of the many tree branches around him. The branch had no connection to a tree, but merely seemed to hang in mid-air. The leaves and blossoms mixed and intertwined like music, and the alternating patterns of thick lines of the brush to the unreasonably thin hair like lines. Details and unfinished lines toyed with his eyes.
"I hope it pleases you, Prince Zuko." She said, after his eyes grazed the page.
"It does." He replied, looking at it again.
"Than you may keep it." She said, and bowed to him.
"Thank you." He responded. "Your art is soothing."
"It honors me to hear you say that."
He bowed to her. "Mai."
"Prince Zuko." She bowed respectively back.
Her silk robes played with the on coming breeze, hearing the rustle of her movements. The wind toyed with her hair, it would move a few inches away from her back until the wind lost catch of it momentarily. The pamphlet and ink kit where held in her hands in front of her, low by her hips by her dangling arms.
She turned out of the courtyard and he lost sight of her.
Zuko sighed and returned his attention to the scroll...yet his eyes kept glancing at the painting...and his mind to the painter.
Yep, that's it. Not my favorite nor my best, but just a short one I thought of. R&R if you want.