They were in the garden near the turtle ducks.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"You know why!"
"Please just tell me what you want!" Katara said with tears in her eyes.
"I want you dead then he'll love me." Mai continued to hold Katara by the neck and squeezed a little bit harder.
"We never meant to hurt you. Wait a minute! Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't YOU break up with him!"
"Only after I saw you two by the turtle duck pond."
Katara gasped. "I told him no that he couldn't do that to you and I couldn't do that to Aang."
"That doesn't change the fact that he asked you first."
"But I declined his offer!"
"I'm still going to kill you." Mai pulled out three kunai in each hand and readied herself to end Katara's life when she heard a voice screaming.
"Mai!"
Mai turned to see Zuko, and that was the opening that Katara needed. She quickly gathered water from a nearby potted play and froze Mai to the wall.
"What the hell is wrong with you? You were actually going to kill her."
Zuko walked over to where Katara was sitting. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, thanks for coming I don't think I would be here if you didn't."
"Katara I don't think I can do this anymore."
"So what should we do?"
"We should tell Aang. It's obvious I'm not marrying this sack of crazy." As he gestured toward Mai, Katara let out a small chuckle.
"Ok but you know he will want to kill you?"
"Yeah, but that's not the point. The point is you need to put this necklace on so that crap like this doesn't happen again."
"What no flowery speech about how I complete you and all that junk?" she said with a raised eyebrow.
"Nope. Been there, done that. You said no so I'm trying a very demanding blunt approach." He held out the necklace again. "Put. It.
On. Now."
"Ok."
As she's putting it on Aang walks into the courtyard. "Hey Katara whatcha up to..."
He sees the necklace, Zuko holding her hand, but only seems to comment on Mai.
"What happened to her?"
"She attacked Katara."
"Wow. She's batshit crazy isn't she?"
They both nodded.
"So does this," he pointed toward the betrothal necklace "mean that I can date someone else too?"
Katara nodded again, because she not able to say any words.
"Finally! You two are more obvious than Appa hiding behind Sokka."
"Wait you knew?"
"Of course I knew why do you think I have been leaving you here for months at a time. Katara you are such a great friend but I was not about to marry you. Even if Zuko was going through with his proposal to Mai, Toph and I were going to find a way to break it up. Thankfully Mai is completely bonkers and we didn't have to."
With that he left the two saying "congratulations" and went back into the palace.
"That was really weird." Katara said.
"Tell me about it."
"Wait. Toph is going out with Teo. Who did he have in mind to start dating?"
Things started to click in Zuko's head and he realized it.
"Oh damn. He has been asking about Azula for a little while. I thought it was to make sure she wasn't causing trouble but something should have tipped me off when he asked about her favorite color and flower type."
"Are you serious that's flippin' hilarious!" Katara said through her fit of laughing.
"Yeah, you may laugh no but what if they get married then your ex-boyfriend will be your brother-in-law." He said with a smirk.
Katara immediately stopped laughing. "Yeah, you're right that would be really weird."
They both looked at each other and sprinted to where Aang walked away so they could find him screaming in unison, "Aang! Wait up!"
Hey so I have no idea where that came from, but there it was. But just so you guys know, I love the character of Mai. I just treated her like crap in this story. I also love the Aangzula/Azulaang (?) pairing fun stuff and so many possibilities that are quite hilarious. This was set at an ambiguous time after Aang became a teenager, hence the cursing. Well tell me what you guys think, I really don't know how decent my writing is.
Thanks for reading!