A/N: Like a lot of people (although I suspect not too many Maiko shippers), I thought their relationship came out of nowhere. At the beginning of Book 3, I thought the lovey-dovey sequences between them were literally "daydreams" (come on, it was in the title of the episode) and not real. And in the Boiling Rock when Mai defied the princess, my mouth hung open and I was like, where did THAT come from? This fic is an attempt to show real Maiko love and although it's a bit self-indulgent and the concept has certainly been done before, I hope you'll have patience and even enjoy reading it.
This first bit takes place sometime during Zuko's banishment. There will be other brief one-shots but they're more constrained by canon. This one is my favorite.
They wrote love letters. She suspected that she was the only one from his past life he wrote to, and the thought warmed her. Azula would have mentioned it if his family had received any news from him, just to see how Mai would react. It wasn't easy, sneaking them past Azula's notice - Mai and Ty Lee were with the princess every minute while at the royal academy, and even vacations were spent at her side. It wasn't that Mai resented that - she had nothing better to do, and Agni forbid she have to spend vacations with her parents and worst of all, an infant brother - but it made it difficult to sneak correspondence past her.
Azula had long since lost interest in playing with knives - it was because she lacked the skill that Mai had, but no one ever said so aloud - and so Mai's time spent on the practice fields with her stilettos gave her a chance to sneak a parchment and a few coins to a servant for quiet delivery to the messenger hawk aviary. For obvious reasons, she wasn't keen for anyone to know the letters were meant for him. A soldier serving Mai's family would pretend to mail them via a fire navy communication tower to his brother, who served on the exile's ship. The soldier would receive the reply and disguise it with her own family's seal before passing it on to the academy. Mai managed to sneak the man coins any time she was home, and she was as generous as she could afford to be. Death threats were probably sufficient to ensure he never read them, but Mai didn't want to take any chances. She wondered when someone would find it suspicious that simple soldiers were exchanging letters, but she couldn't do anything about that.
And so the more impossible their future seemed, the more in love with him she fell. Oh yes, they had had crushes on each other since she was 9, but Mai cynically thought that they would have grown out of it had it not been for the banishment. All Mai remembered from that terrible day was that it had sharpened her feelings and brought her a crystal clarity - she loved him. She was only 12, but she knew she loved him. She ached for him and slowly grew accustomed to the knowledge that if he came back, he would not be the same shy and awkward boy she'd had a crush on. Every month he spent on that idiotic mission hardened him, and even though he said nothing, the letters began to reveal a coldness and distance that grew a life of its own. He was growing up, and he was doing it in the worst possible way and doing it so far away from her. She felt herself growing colder, harder in response. She knew she would never want anyone else. They could take this, and whatever else life threw at them. They loved each other.
After the banishment, she had managed to continue on with her life as if nothing was wrong. Her daily routine was not so demanding that keeping the mask in place was that difficult. Azula had never asked what Mai thought about his banishment. Ty Lee had commented once, right after, that Mai's aura was blacker than ever, but Mai glared at her hard enough that she had shut up. Mai thought her aura probably lightened every time she received a letter, but thankfully, Ty Lee was loyal enough not to ask, after that first time.
Mai still remembered when she'd received the first one. Thinking it was nothing more than boring correspondence from her mother reminding her of her duty to her family or stupid news of her baby brother, she waited weeks to open it. Eventually she'd been reminded of it by accidentally knocking it off her desk from under the other piles of stuff she was ignoring - schoolwork, mostly. She'd been lucky that Azula was absent from the academy to visit her father at the time.
The letter didn't say who it was really from, but at the very first character, she knew. "I miss you." It hadn't said much - he wasn't a wordy person, and after all, they had never really declared themselves. She'd given him a small, heart-shaped lava rock in place of having to find words, and they'd shared a brief, chaste kiss. Moments when Azula was not around were fleeting, and only a few months later, he was gone.
She had replied immediately. "I love you." They only managed to exchange about four letters a year, but she treasured every word.
He would never discuss where he was or how his search was going. He would never mention how his scar was feeling or whether he was healing, physically or emotionally. Instead, he would wax philosophical about honor, duty, and love, and then admit, his frustration seeping through the characters on the parchment, that he knew nothing about any of it. He would describe how his uncle's firebending lessons were progressing, and then admit to her with angry strokes that he had lost his temper, over and over again. But the best part was when the ink grew soft on the page and he told her how everything he saw reminded him of her: in the dark ocean during the long nights, he would see her hair. In the sun's reflection at dawn, he would see her eyes. And in every letter - even the very last one she would receive - he would swear to return quickly with the Avatar and claim his rightful place at his father's side. No matter how hard life got or how hopeless his quest seemed, he never forgot to promise her this: he would come back for her...