Ten things about Mai that may or may not have screwed her up into the person she is now. Posted originally on my lj and then avatarfic and written pre-finale. Not that it matters, I don't think.
1.
Mai was not prone to crying fits. Instead, she was more likely to take the nearest toy and fling it at the nearest head, her semi-permanent scowl disappating when the projectile nearly gouged her poor nurse's eye out.
2.
Azula's first word when she saw Mai: "MINE!"
Mai's reply: turning over so that she could go back to sleep.
3.
"The Art of War" was the very first book she finished. Not that she understood it.
4.
Ty Lee's first mistake was trying to yank Mai's braids from her scalp. Mai's mistake was letting her before she could finish cutting off Ty Lee's ponytail.
5.
The Academy was weird, full of girls that were almost as strange as Ty Lee. They fawned over Azula, fell over their feet to compliment Mai and imitated Ty Lee's strange acrobatics as well as they could.
"Power," yawned Azula when they were alone, "Isn't it grand?"
6.
Mai and Ty Lee didn't exactly have a choice about becoming the best students in their classes. Azula would have drop-kicked them if they were anything but. At least she didn't have to make small talk with her parents anymore. They stopped asking her about her day when she pinned the main course on the far wall with her dinner knife and announced, "School's great."
7.
Swimming looked like a very pleasant thing to do, but Azula would never let her or Ty Lee try. "Only peasants and Zuzu bother with that kind of thing," she sniffed.
8.
It wasn't that the Fire Lady made Mai nervous so much as very aware of how her fingers could never strum such pretty sounds from the harp, no matter how hard she tried. Actually, when she thought about it, it was more that the Fire Lady made her feel inadequate, and only Azula was supposed to do that.
9.
Contrary to what Ty Lee and Azula thought, Mai did not like Zuko in that way. At least, she didn't think she did. It was just that he wasn't as bossy as Azula and he made more sense than Ty Lee. And, okay, he was kinda cute. But she did not like him in that way.
10.
The only present her parents gave her that she wasn't forced to keep was her first set of throwing knives. They were beautifully crafted with the Fire Nation's emblem embracing the hilt with its curlicues. She thanked them politely before leaving to find her first target (Ty Lee never forgave her for giving her split ends on their graduation day).