Hello all!
This is a (kinda crappy) Maiko One-shot. Pre SDCC trailer... yeah.
Um, I don't own Avatar or Mai or even little Zuko... so - don't sue me!
She was next.
This simple fact had so many meanings to the small girl. Next in line - that, too, had a double meaning. Her head was ducked as her father bowed before the new Fire Lord. Soon, she too, would be bowing before Fire Lord Ozai, paying her respects. She didn't know why though . . .
She was going to be his daughter - in - law.
She didn't dare look him in the face as she walked to bend down where her father once was, her mother behind her. She had known the royal family for four years now, and not once had she dared look him straight in the eye. Bending at the knee, and then at the waist, she bowed. She was nervous and shaking. What were the words again?
Oh - "I am very honored to call you my new Fire Lord. My your rein and line be long." She moved to sit and stand back up to let the next in line grovel, but was stopped.
"May you make it so, Lady Mai." The Lord had spoken to her! What was she supposed to do? Her eyes darted to Azula - who had a twisted smile on her face, then to Zuko - who looked like he just wanted to run away.
Not for the first time did she prefer Zuko over his sister.
Please, she prayed, don't let me stutter . . . "I'm honored, my Lord."
"You will sit with us until dinner, Lady Mai." A sideways glance at her mother (who nodded - quite exaggeratedly) a soft push from her father, and she began walking toward Azula. She had done her duty. A hand in front of her stopped her abruptly.
It was the Fire Lord's. Did she do something wrong?
"With Zuko."
She nodded and quickly made her way towards Zuko's mat. She sat and stared up at her father. He was beaming, along with her mother that joined him shortly. Deep down, she knew that the only reason they were proud was because it was the royal family. Only thing a daughter seemed to be good for nowadays was for politics and babies. Mai preferred neither.
"I'm sorry," came a small voice next to her.
She turned to Zuko, confused, "Why?"
"You obviously don't want to be up here," her eyes darted up to the back of the Fire Lord's head. "Don't worry, he can't hear you."
"That may be so, Prince Zuko," the formality hit Zuko, "but I could say the same for you."
He smiled.
"Prince Zuko . . ."
"Since when do you call me by my title?"
"Since your father is the new Fire Lord."
"That doesn't change who I am to you."
"But it changes who I am to them." She motioned out to the crowd with her head. "Especially since Lady Ur-" she stopped mid word and mid breath.
His tone turned dark, "What about my mother?"
"Since she's gone."
He continued the conversation with silence.
"Are the rumors true?"
His face turned to hers, "what rumors?"
She paused at his stare, ". . . that she k-killed herself?"
If she thought that his tone was dark before, it was light and bubbly compared to his next sentence - "My mother would never do that to herself." His eyes went back to the sea of people in front of them. "She's just gone."
Mai said no more that day. Now that Lady Ursa was gone, the nation would begin to look to her as the female presence in the Capital. Her mother told her that much, that she would be a great influence in the world one day as Prince Zuko's wife. As his wife - and one day - the Fire Lady next to him as he ruled.
There friendship was strained. There betrothal was much more complicated than it was before.
That was when they were nine. The day that Ozai was crowned, Azulon was buried, and Ursa left. The world seemed to shift and to change after that. Mai just thought that it was growing up, but not Zuko. After that day he had a different personality. She assumed that she did too, and blamed it on growing up. He was darker and moodier. He had a nose in all of the military movements and the politics of some of the lower ranked generals. He poured himself into his studies, both with books and Firebending. She found all of this extraordinarily boring.
You see, as his betrothed, she was forced to spend time with her future husband. Mostly watching him study or read the news reports. One day, she was eating breakfast in the study room, waiting on Zuko to walk through the door. Food had been prepared for them, and today's reports were spread across the table. Mai didn't bother trying to read them.
"Good morning, Mai!" he said, as he drug himself into the room, ready to eat.
"Why do you bother?"
The question took him off guard. Usually, they shared good mornings and then they ate, and, if they talked, laughed at something Ty Lee did or scowl at something Azula did, then they were off to Firebending lessons. Well - Zuko was - Mai watched. She didn't mind watching, and sometimes she was jealous of the gift that Zuko and Azula was given.
Once - she asked if a Firebender would be better suited as a betrothed, and was told off with a strict slap to the face and a stiff explanation. Lady Ursa explained better and softer than her mother ever could, 'a Firebender and a non-bender have a better chance to have a baby that can bend. Two benders and there is a chance that the baby wont be able to bend at all.'
Mai sighed, staring at Zuko's shocked face, she missed Lady Ursa.
"Bother with what?"
"Reading all this stuff." she picked up a report that had 'war' in it's title, "It's not like you're going into war any time soon. You're not old enough."
Zuko scrunched his nose, "No, but I like knowing what's going on in the world."
"Why do you care? You're ten!"
"Because, one day, I'm going to have to care." He picked at his eggs, "I thought I could all the practice I can get."
She never questioned his reading material after that, even picking up a few herself.
It wasn't long after that, that Mai found his collection of knifes. He had been hiding it from her, saying that he enjoyed fighting with these more than he did Firebending.
"I've never been good at Firebending. Average at best. Never good - or great. With swords and knives, it just - works." He told her. She knew this was important. "For a Fire bender, a royal Firebender, being better at swordplay is shameful. I have to hide it. Uncle helps sometimes."
She was interested in finding out more about knives and swords. As a future Fire Lady - she wasn't permitted to learn to fight. She watched the benders in Zuko and Azula's lessons with envy. She would watch Azula and Ty Lee spar in the open grounds and not be able to join in. For a long time, even with Zuko - who made sure that she was taken care of - she felt very lonely.
Then she asked Zuko for one of his knives. He obliged, warning her to be careful. Secretly, she practiced, spinning it, aiming it, tossing it and over time - asked for more. She hid herself and her weapons from her maids, and her father, and most certainly her mother. If her mother ever found out, she's have to wear cover on her cheek for a week. She hid it - as Zuko did.
Together, they had a secret. Finally, they seemed to really be friends. He requested extra time together, not to talk as he said they did, but to throw knives. Over time, she nearly took over his entire collection of throwing knives, and surprising him with a few new ones herself.
"I had some money saved up - and I sent for these." Pulling ten blades out of a brown package, she gave them to him to inspect. They were small, and all metal, made to fit underneath the sleeves of her robes. He asked for one of them, and he threw one, quite unsuccessfully. It hit the wall on the right side of the target and it bounced uselessly to the floor below. They laughed.
"You are my best friend, Mai."
He shocked her at his proclamation. She smiled. "As you are mine, Prince Zuko - even though you can't aim."
They laughed again as he retrieved the wayward knife. "If we are truly best friends, Mai, stop calling me 'Prince'."
"Okay, Zuko."
He handed her back her knife.
"I have a gift for you!" He raised his left eyebrow at her. She loved it when he did that. He knew it, too. "I had some money left over after I bought these. I wanted to get you something for teaching me."
"Teaching you?" he laughed something similar to a bark, "You can hit a bulls eye every time. I'm lucky if I can hit the wall the targets on!"
She laughed again. Lately, she laughed a lot when she was with him. "Yeah, that's why I got you a couple of bigger knives." She went back to the brown package still on the table, and pulled two broad swords. "They are old, but they are for you."
He took them with much glee and happiness. When she left that day, he called for his Uncle - surely he knew how to use these. He wanted to learn how for her.
They were twelve when the shared their first kiss. Her mother always told her that her first kiss should be given to her husband, saved for her husband, only for her husband. It was an ideal that her mother had successfully passed onto her daughter. That was, until, Zuko and Mai hid in one of the kitchen pantries.
Eleven year old Princess Azula's favorite game was a twisted version of Hide and Seek, where the seeker would find the hider, making them do a dare - mostly of dangerous nature and usually had to do with fire. She had 'requested' that they all play. Ty Lee, Zuko, Mai, and a small boy - whom Mai recognized as a fellow General's child.
Poor kid's father had been summoned and he was left at the mercy of Princess Azula while the parents played war. Mai didn't bother learning his name, he wouldn't be back tomorrow.
Azula declared that she was 'it' and began counting.
Ty Lee and the General's son ran in opposite directions in the court yard. Zuko grabbed Mai's hand and they made a break for it inside. "Zuko! We can't go inside!"
"She never said we couldn't!" he smirked back at her. Mai laughed after him. They ran down a great hall and turned so fast that Mai almost lost her footing. "Come on! Last place Azula will look is a place with servants!"
They ended up in the kitchens, closing themselves into a food pantry, telling the cooks that they 'weren't there'. They 'weren't there' for almost an hour before Mai began to get worried. The lunch cooks had left and the kitchens were deserted until dinner.
"Zuko," she started, "what if she gets mad?"
"For losing? Then she's a sore loser. Besides, I'll protect you!" A blush ran over her cheeks at his words, that hadn't happened for a long time. She opened her mouth to say something else, when the kitchen doors slammed open, and Zuko 'shh'ed her.
It wasn't Azula, as they feared, but a maid and one of Zuko's Firebending teachers. The younger one - Xio Lin - she thinks.
"But, this is the kitchens!"
"And it'll be deserted for a few more hours."
Zuko and Mai had settled themselves against the pantry door - opened just a crack to see the room - and were watching the couple intently. The maid smiled coyly and pulled Xio Lin into a deep kiss.
Both Mai's and Zuko's eyes widened and they threw themselves from the door. "they're kissing!" he whispered.
"No duh!" she returned. She knew they weren't married - Xio Lin was in training to become a Fire Sage - Sages were not allowed to take wives. So why did he take this woman's kiss? Why did she give it to him? She gave up her questions and looked again, ignoring the pleading, "Mai!" behind her. She waved at him with her hand.
Xio Lin had pressed the maid up against the wall, and it looked as though he was trying to eat her, "why would someone want to do that?" Mai whispered, she didn't know that she said it aloud until Zuko asked, "Do what?"
He was interested now, and he scooted back to his spot near the open door, and watched as Xio Lin lifted the maid up by her knees, exposing her thighs as she wrapped her legs around him. Zuko's mouth dropped, "we shouldn't be watching this."
They then found out that the maid's name was Aimi.
Mai nodded as the couple gathered themselves in another kiss. But she couldn't seem to pull her eyes away, and dimly noted that it seemed that Zuko couldn't either. She adjusted herself so that she was on her knees - a few inches from Zuko.
This was interesting.
They left quickly as soon as the couple was finished and snuck out in a fit of giggles. They ran to the court yard, hopeful to find Azula and Ty Lee. What they found was worse.
Mai's mother.
While the woman loved her daughter, she had a bad habit of forcing manners and well being onto her daughter. 'She was to be the Fire Lady' she would say 'you need to learn to act like it!' So, when she found her daughter running down the hall, with loud peals of laughter, holding hands with her betrothed, the mother was furious.
"Mai!" the children stopped in their place. "What do you think you are doing, young lady?"
A small glance to Zuko and she answered, "Playing."
"Playing?" the woman yelled, "what do you call this?" She motioned to their connected hands.
Zuko snapped back his hand - as if it would save Mai from some punishment. "Holding hands," Mai answered bravely. Zuko was shocked, and tried to help.
"Please, ma'm . . ."
"No, Prince Zuko. You may be her future husband, but I am her mother. I know what's best."
"We were just playing!" Mai shouted. As a reflex, her mother slapped her hard across the face. Zuko was just as shocked as Mai looked unsounded.
With a look towards her mother, Zuko took Mai off down the hall.
Later that night, after dinner, Mai and Zuko retreated back to his room. A small bruise was forming on her chin where her mother had taken hand to her. Zuko was upset that he could not be there for her, but requested that Mai stay the night - in one of the guest rooms. Ty Lee clapped giddily (for she was already staying the night), the General's son from earlier groaned (for he had been informed that his family was staying the night) and Azula mused down into her dinner seat.
"Of course," Zuko continued, "If that is alright with your mother." He made a point to stare at the woman as he said this.
"Of course!" the woman said, fearful of the Fire Lord, "Any request you have of my daughter is your's already!"
Mai gulped and rubbed her chin. Her mother looked down at her lap.
Now it was after diner and she was on the verge of tears, "I'm sorry you had to see that Zuko!" Her voice so small that Zuko barely heard it in the echoes of the vast hall.
"If my mother were still here, she wouldn't stand for it."
"I know," she wouldn't look at him.
"My father hits me sometimes - when I do something . . . undesirable."
She looked him in the eye, "I know."
They stood for a minute, quiet, unsure of what to do next, when a maid walked out of one the rooms. Zuko recognized her immediately. It took Mai a moment.
Aimi.
Both children's eyes widened, and Mai felt as though they should hide, but the maid had seen them, in fact, she was giving Zuko a slight bow.
"Your Highness."
"Aimi," he answered with a smoothness Mai didn't know he could do. The maid smiled at her name, probably more at the fact that the young prince knew it, but she stood and walked away with a small hop to her step. The two betrothed looked back at each other, and cracked out laughing.
He led her down three more doors and pointed at it, "that one is your room, unless you want to stay with Azula and Ty Lee."
She blushed, "thank you, Zuko."
He smiled, "goodnight, Mai."
He had walked a few steps before she made up her mind. "Zuko!" He turned, left eyebrow raised, and she blushed. Walking up to him with courage she didn't know she had and hit her target with the accuracy of one of her knives. It was light and short, but it was a kiss. When she pulled back his eyes.
She smiled, "goodnight, Zuko."
He blushed, "thank you, Mai."
"I'm sorry."
The prisoner flashed her an angry look, denying her statement with an unspoken, "yeah - right."
"You shouldn't have left. Azula got angry that you betrayed her trust."
He cocked his neck, popping a few bones, and Mai shuddered.
"Why did you go?" He didn't answer - only looked forward. "Why?" He lowered his head to stare at his feet. "Are you going to talk to me?"
He growled, "why should I? Last time I did that, you told on me."
"I did no such thing."
His angry eyes flashed back to her, and she fought back another shudder, "then how did Azula know where I was going?"
She stared him down, "General Iroh." The shocked look on his face told her enough. The old man was right, he wouldn't have suspected that. If anything - he trusted the old man. "He said he wanted you to feel the pains of betrayal."
Then, he did something she never suspected he would do - he began to cry. "I wanted to help him, I just didn't know how."
She remained cold, leaning - arms crossed - against the cool metal of the cell. The only light consisted of an oil lamp on a table opposite end of the room, sitting on a wooden table - next to all of his things. His water canteen, his map, his broad swords.
The ones that she had given him.
She pushed that thought into the back of her mind as she went about 'interrogating the prisoner'. "Nice way of helping him - leaving him here."
She saw him eye his swords so, she stood up straighter, "what were you thinking, Zuko?"
He looked forward again, "that maybe I could find her."
Mai's eyebrows went up, "Your mother? Zuko . . ."
"She's not dead," he interrupted, pulling against his chains. "I have proof. I have to find her, Mai."
"What about the war? The Fire Nation? The Avatar?"
"All those things will settle with time. My mother will not."
"Do you not realize that you are important to this war? To the Nation? To the Avatar?
"Maybe I am!" He stood up, knocking over his chair, "I will do no good locked up in this prison cell!"
She had long abandoned her place on the wall, and fingered her sleeve daggers slowly. "If you plan to fight," she moved toward the table, the emblem of her nation staring, laughing down at her from the tapestry above, she gripped the old swords as one, "then you, at least, should arm yourself." Lifting the blades, her eyes never left his - unmoving, unsympathetic. He took a step back in anticipation. In one swift movement, sliced downward, cutting his bounds. Shifting the swords, she handed them to him by the hilt.
The chains slid off of his arms, slowly, like a snake slithering, and landed with a loud clank that echoed around them. She cocked her head, "What's the matter, Zuko?" She blinked. "Don't want to fight me?"
"What happened to you, Mai?"
For a second, she feared that she let her eyes faulted, but years under Azula did her good. "I grew up. Now arm yourself."
He took the swords, heavy in his hands, and separated them. "I don't want to fight you."
She answered with a warning shot. The dagger flew by his left ear, and embedded itself into the wall behind him.
"You are a long range fighter, Mai." She threw a punch, he dodged, backing away from her, "I am a close range fighter." Another punch, another dodge. "It wouldn't be fair."
That seemed to hit a nerve.
"Fair?" anger danced over her face. "How about losing everything you worked for? Everything you lived for?"
"What?" he dodged another punch, she was lousy at hand to hand combat, he noticed.
He saw her release a few hand daggers, "Your entire life, gone! Having to start over with nothing! To fit into a world you were never expected to be in! To chose between what is right and what will keep you alive!" With each new fact she added to the list, a dagger found his sword.
Blocking her attacks best he could this close, he listened to her rants, "We are not going to talk about my past!" He lowered himself and prepared to block again, each sword low by his side.
She already had another dagger ready to toss, "Who said I was talking about you?" It flew.
He blocked. "What?"
She didn't answer with words, but with actions, tossing everything she had at him. He could tell she was angry and frustrated, for she grunted and screamed with every blade or shuriken that she threw his way. With each thrust, she lost her resolve. She began crying.
She stopped, "Why did you leave?" she screamed, "Why did you leave, and not say anything to me?" She dropped the arrow in her hand, "Why didn't you say goodbye?"
He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, she wasn't talking about when he left Ba Sing Sea. When he left to search for his mother.
"I was ashamed."
She looked up, and it did him physical pain to see the tear streaks down her cheeks, "of a scar?"
He looked down, lowering his weapons, "no. That I shamed everyone. The Nation, father, Uncle, mother," he glanced back up to her, "you."
"You were my best friend, Zuko. I didn't care."
"I did."
She broke again, "damnit," she cursed her self. She didn't like to cry. She did that too much when he left.
"Why are you like this? Cold and distant from everyone?"
"When you left, Zuko," she shook her head, "I was left alone with Azula." His face jerked, "I had to learn to hide certain things around her. At first it was feelings about you, and then it was my mother, and my father. One thing led to another. I found it easier to be around her when I wasn't there." She wiped her face, "you left me alone to face that. You have made me what I have become!"
He dropped his swords, "I'm sorry. I know what she can be like," he took a swift breath, steadying himself, "but what did you want me to do? Bring you along with me? Into exile?" He shook his head, "It's not a life anyone should live. It's not a life that I would wish on anyone. Especially not my best friend. You deserved a better life than that."
"Look how you turned out."
"Yeah," he scoffed, "A prisoner of my sister and ex-girlfriend." He sniffed, his blood beginning to boil, "a traitor to the only man who ever gave a damn about me! Wanted in my home country! Bested by my little sister and a twelve year old boy!" His arms hit his side, angry, sparks flying.
"You are free," she whispered.
"Look around, Mai!" he screamed at her. "I'm in a prison!"
"Look around, Zuko," she whimpered at him. "So am I."
It was more emotion than she had ever felt, these last five minutes, than she had ever felt in her entire life. The ride she was on was worse and scarier than it was when he left. She hated it.
She hated it worse when he kissed her.
And more so than that when she couldn't keep herself from kissing back.
But when he pressed her back against the wall, she didn't care anymore, and wanted more of him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she moaned into his mouth. He lifted her up, by the knees, and she was drawn back into an old memory. Of food closets, and first kisses. Of hiding spots and bruised cheeks. Of the Firebender's back and the maids grip. She wrapped her legs around him, making him hiss.
The room seemed to get hotter.
"Why didn't you ever write?" it came out breathy and whinny, and as soon as she said them, she wished she hadn't. He pulled his lips off her neck, and stared into her yellow eyes.
"I never got any letters." He still held her against the wall, pressing into her in the most delirious way.
"I wrote you all the time. At first I was mad, then I just missed you. Then I stopped, because I found out that Azula knew. She said that she got letters from you all the time. That you just didn't want to write me."
He placed a soft kiss on her lips and said three simple words. Three words that should have been common knowledge to her by now, but weren't.
"Azula always lies."
She smirked, "then we need to get out of here." The 'what?' was written all over his face, "she says she's not going to kill you. If she's lying, we need to get out of here."
"You mean, I need to get of here."
"No." She said, tightening her hold on him, "We. I am not letting you leave me, not again."
"Mai," he whispered, running the back of his hand over her cheek. "It won't be easy." She shrugged. "It might not always be clean." She narrowed her eyes, he knew her weakness for cleanliness.
She took a deep breath, "at least I'll be with you."
"One kiss, and you're willing to throw everything away?"
She kissed him again, "I do believe that makes three." He smiled. She reached up, touching his scared skin, "It's not that bad."
"Heh," he laughed, "we're not in good light."
She laughed.
"It's good to hear you laugh," he thumbed her chin, and she leaned into his embrace and his kiss one last time before they had to get to work.
"We need to get out of here," she dropped from his waist reluctantly, and set about gathering her knives. He pulled together his rucksack, and made sure one last time.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes. It's all very exciting." She opened his cell door and looked around, and then back to him. "Running away, middle of a war, with a Prince in search of a Queen. For love." He pulled her to him and kissed her, gathering her as best he could. She smiled as she pulled away and they climbed up the ship's stairs. It was the middle of the night, and Mai was the night guard. This would be easy.
When they reached the life boat, Zuko was hit with a pang of regret. "Mai."
She rolled her eyes, "please don't say you've changed your mind!"
"No. But we have to get Uncle!"
She smiled. She knew he couldn't be all bad. "Okay. Then we have to go back to the Fire Nation."
He nodded. "I'm sorry for dragging you all into this. Intentional or not."
"Doesn't matter," she cut one of the ropes, "I've always preferred you over Azula. You're more exciting."
She swore she saw him blush.
"Besides," she threw him a wicked smile, "Azula was beginning to get boring, anyway."
Teh Edn. v reviews v are nice, but considering what I just wrote - I wouldn't blame you if you didn't.