book of hours
the light here leaves you lonely, fading
as does the dusk that takes too long to arrive
Mai once heard a story about a princess who was cursed to sleep and sleep and sleep until her prince came to wake her up. She always thought it was terribly romantic.
It is not an auspicious beginning. Her parents are attending a ball, which she has been forced to join, although she isn't allowed to touch anything or dance with anyone or interfere in any way, so she sits - bored and lonely - by the drinks and people-watches, making up little stories in her head about them. There is Lao Xing, and he's madly in love with Lady Rei, who's married to Lao's brother. She's heard the whispered gossip, so she knows it's true, but she imagines the sorts of conversations they have when they're alone together: Oh, Lady Rei, you're the most beautiful woman in all the land and Lao Xing, my darling. She doesn't really know what comes next, but she knows that it's terribly scandalous.
Once, she mentioned these rumors and this curiosity to her mother, who simply scoffed and told her that Lady Rei was not to be imitated and that she should keep her mouth shut. Girls are to be seen and not heard, Mai, in that sharp tone.
As always, she had simply bowed low to the floor and begged for forgiveness, although she didn't really understand her crime.
At the ball, though, she wants desperately to scream it out at the top of her lungs, to just leap up onto the drinks table and cry that Lao Xing is having an affair with Lady Rei and they do things in back rooms when no one is watching. It would be terrible of her, and she almost does it, just to see what would happen, but then she remembers that cold, sharp voice her mother uses when she's done something wrong (which is always), and she sits very still and very quiet.
"What are you sitting here for?" a small voice asks, and she looks up into wide, gray eyes. "It must be boring."
"I'm not supposed to get involved with anything," she says, calling up the words her mother has drilled into her. "Girls are meant to be seen and not heard."
"Yeah, I heard that too," the girl replies simply, and holds out her hand, "but you're not being heard or seen sitting over here, are you?"
She stares at the girl's outstretched hand blankly. "What do you want me to do?"
"Dance!" she answers cheerfully.
"I'm not very good at dance." It's one of the (many) things that Mother hates about her - clumsy, stupid Mai can't even get a little dance right - and it's a very sensitive subject. The mere thought of going through the motions again makes her tremble with fear, and she almost recoils from the happy girl.
"That's okay," she says, like there's nothing written on Mai's face, "'cause it's not about being good. Didn't anyone ever tell you that?" The girl reaches forward and grabs Mai's hand, pulling her up from her safe little seat and dragging her across the floor. "Dance," she says triumphantly when they're in the very middle of the floor, "is about moving to music. I'm Ty Lee, by the way," she shouts over the strings beginning the next song, and takes her other hand. "What's your name?"
"Mai," she replies softly, and lets Ty Lee pull her through the motions of a simple dance.
"You and the youngest Hua girl seemed to get along nicely," Mother tells her. Mai bows as low as she can, until her forehead is touching the floor.
"I'm sorry, Mother, I know I wasn't supposed to get involved in anything."
"You weren't. But I suppose if you must," she says, dripping with venom, "at least it's good that you learned something. Get her to teach you dance steps," she adds flippantly, "since it seems like that's the only way you'll ever improve."
"Yes, Mother," she replies, and isn't sure if she's dismayed or elated.
"O-kay!" Ty Lee says brightly, clapping her hands and moving the band into position, "We are going to learn Noh Mai dance!" She turns and smiles at Mai. "I thought it would be good, because it's got your name in it. And it's not so hard to learn. Plus, it's the most awesome!"
Mai doesn't know how to react to Ty Lee and her ferocious idea of friendship - in her world, even though they've only known each other for a few days, she and Mai are the best of friends. Mai has never had a friend before, so she doesn't entirely know what it means. But she thinks that she rather likes Ty Lee, who is cheerful and eternally happy and chatters endlessly about whatever comes to mind. It's a nice change from the silence and the formality that she's used to.
"All right," she replies quietly, "how do we do this?"
"Well, in real Noh Mai dancing, there's all these masks and costumes and stuff, but we don't have any of that, but they," she indicates to the startled and rather disgruntled-looking band, "will play the music. Right?" She turns innocently to the band members, who appear very uncertain of this plan, but also very afraid to tell either of the high-born children no.
"Um, of course," one of the percussionists says, "but I'm wondering if it's a good idea to begin with such a complicated..."
"It'll be fine," Ty Lee insists and, strangely enough, she's right. Either its the dance or the teacher or the lack of pressure, but Mai takes to this kind of dancing with ease and grace she didn't know she possessed. Ty Lee is positively giddy by the time they break for dinner, and even teases Mai a bit. "And you said you weren't good at dance. You liar!" But she's smiling, and Mai decides that she rather likes this friendship thing.
They meet Azula at a state dinner of some kind, and she immediately sets herself up as the leader of their little group. Ty Lee, Mai is dismayed to learn, is perfectly happy with this and treats Azula with the same bright cheer that she treats Mai with, and she finds herself jealous of the princess. Azula has everything; she can't possibly need Ty Lee the way Mai does.
But instead of speaking about it or even bringing it up, she does what she's best at, and swallows her anger, laying on a facade of carelessness that works on Azula because she isn't prepared for it and on Ty Lee because she isn't looking for it. After the third night of playing second fiddle to the princess, Mai goes home and seeks out one of her old hiding places, folding within herself and pretending that she doesn't exist. It works beautifully for about fifteen minutes, and then Mother calls the servants to find that daughter of hers and get her washed up and ready for bed.
She has half a mind to stay where she is and let them hunt, but it will be worse for her if she does, so she crawls out from under one of the guest beds and sneaks into the kitchen like she's been there the whole time.
"There you are," Mother says disdainfully, looking down her nose at her daughter the way she always does, the way that cries why couldn't you be a son? or why aren't you a firebender? Mother's eyes always whisper not good enough and her tone always speaks of barely-concealed disgust. Mai doesn't understand, and she wants desperately to make her mother love her, at the same time that she wants desperately to run away.
Ty Lee doesn't know that Mai's mother hates her, and Azula doesn't care. She feels horrifically alone in the world.
"Get out of here, won't you? You're not supposed to be here, you know that."
"I'm sorry, Mother," she whispers, the soundtrack of her childhood, "I was hungry."
"Well, you can't have anything," Mother replies coldly. "You know you aren't allowed to snack after dinner. I won't have a fat, ugly cow-hippo for a daughter."
Mai winces, and bites her lip hard to keep from crying.
She meets Zuko when she is eight and he is nine, and she thinks that maybe he will be his friend, now that Azula has stolen Ty Lee. He's friendly and handsome, but he's not cheerful like Ty Lee and he doesn't make the ghost of her home life go away like Ty Lee did in those first few weeks. Still, she recognizes something in him, the way he talks about his father mirroring the way she talks about her mother, and she wonders if they aren't alike after all.
Azula teases her for her apparent crush, but it's not a crush, not really. Zuko is nice to her, and Mai is starved for kindness, so she will do anything to keep Zuko liking her and treating her kindly. It's not romantic, just necessary.
And then Azula sets an apple on fire on top of her head and he barely speaks to her after that. This is the moment when Mai begins to loathe Azula.
Once - only once - when Mother's breath smells of wine and Father is off on a trip, when Mother screams so loud that the servants run to hide, leaving Mai alone to take the brunt of her anger, when Mai has failed to make a good impression on some faceless nobleman and his faceless son, she cries. Mother screams and rants and shouts and slaps her across the face several times, until she lays on the floor in a bundle and tries to make herself as small as she can and as unobtrusive as possible, and sobs.
When Mother finally slams the door and storms off into the depths of the house, Mai staggers to her feet and flees, all the way out of the house and past the gates, until she reaches Ty Lee's home. A servant answers the door and leads her in, surprised.
Three girls who look exactly like Ty Lee are standing in the drawing room when she's led in, but none of them seem to recognize her, and after all, they're too old to be her best (only) friend. She sits on one of the bouncy seats and feels strangely out of place, and she knows that she's a mess - her hair is loose and her eyes are red from crying and her clothes are rumpled. Ty Lee bursts through the doors and demands to know what happened, dragging her by the hand to her room which is - of course - pink.
Oddly enough, the pink silk sheets and the pink walls and the cheerful paintings of happy scenes calms Mai enough to talk. She tells Ty Lee everything about everything, about her Mother and her inability to please her and her hiding places and her not-crush on Zuko - everything except her hatred of Azula.
"We can take care of this," Ty Lee says earnestly, eyes full of sympathetic tears. "If you want... Azula can..."
"No, I don't want - don't make her get involved in this," she replies, although it almost comes out as don't tell her my secrets. Ty Lee nods and throws her arms around her shoulders.
"Okay. It's okay, Mai."
It's not, but she can believe it when Ty Lee says so.
A/N: This was originally a one-shot, but it got too long, so I divided it up into three parts; here is the first one.