desperate
Mai hated decisions.
She hated this decision above all else. Mostly, she hated it because she already made it and something stupid and desperate inside of her was trying to find a way to retroactively change her mind. All she could do was take in shuddering breaths while no one could see her.
"What's wrong?" Ty Lee asked, intruding on Mai's brief privacy. She wanted to lash out, but she was not able.
"I wish I was brave," Mai said, which made Ty Lee avert her eyes and frown. "I was going to stop her not help—"
Ty Lee's hand smashed against Mai's mouth, a desperate movement to shut her up. How surprising. Mai was used to people wanting her to perpetually bite her tongue.
"Don't say that about Azula. She's your best friend and I'm your best friend and you did a really good thing," Ty Lee insisted, lowering her hand to hold one of Mai's.
Mai would usually shake Ty Lee off of her, but she sat still. She thought she had forgotten how to move.
"Do you ever wonder if we're the good guys or the bad guys?" Mai asked quietly. Ty Lee returned her palm to Mai's mouth and then hugged her.
"Don't feel bad, okay? Never feel bad because you're amazing and I love you and don't ever feel bad," Ty Lee rambled, smiling at Mai and going elsewhere, probably to find Azula.
Mai never felt guilty until today.
Was she really so desperate to retain a life she hated that she would do that?
Mai's parents were desperate bastards and she was never going to speak to either of them again. She was in a wedding dress on her wedding day at her wedding and she wanted to kill the people who bore her solely to get closer to important people.
She did not think he would care much about that.
Ozai was not a very understanding man.
In the morning, Mai hated herself. Not because it was bad, but for the opposite reason. She thought it was incredible, which made her a terrible person.
When did she start caring if she was a decent human being or not? Maybe around the time she did the most inhumane thing in history, other than perhaps genocide.
"Is something wrong?" asked the man Mai married. She would not call him her husband. Never.
"No, of course not," Mai replied. She did not know how to voice anything other than the cold and detached. Right now, she only wished she were colder and more detached.
He leaves without much conversation, which Mai appreciates. Ozai has to deal with an Avatar on the loose and probably a thousand plans to execute.
Mai wanted to be alone. She liked solitude.
The only problem was that she desperately did not want to be left alone with her thoughts.
They tore her apart like nothing else could.