Where will you go from here?
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the settings.
A/N: Takes place about two hours after Zuko's coronation-dinner thing, after sunset. Place is the balcony off Mai's palace suite (why she has a palace suite since she lives right next door is because she's an important person, and important people have palace suites. Right…).
"Where will you go from here?" the young Fire Lord asked the darkly dressed young woman next to him.
"I don't know… Maybe wander around for a while, get a job…" Mai drawled with a shrug as she looked down at the passing figures below.
"Where?" Zuko pressed, taking a step closer. Mai shrugged from her perch on the rail of the balcony overlooking the Palace gates. "What sort of job?"
Mai glanced at him as though she had only just noticed he was there—and as though she couldn't be moved to care. "Assassin. I hear the pay's good. Work should be exciting, and plenty of down time if I want it."
"You know you don't have to," Zuko told her, finally seeming to relax and leaning on the balcony rail. "It's not like you're unwelcome in the Fire Nation. Agni only knows you should be heralded as a hero."
"Heroes don't help kill their best friends," Mai reminded him, her voice intoning the matter as though it were any other simple fact. "And heroes don't get what they want in the end," she added as she saw the Avatar exiting the doors, ever present lemur on his shoulder.
"You're not leaving because of someone, are you? People aren't expected to stay long," Zuko told her.
"And I'm one of them." Zuko and Mai looked at each other. "I'm leaving because of me, Zuko. Not because of anyone else."
Zuko sighed. "I wish you'd stay…"
Mai looked away from him. "There's nothing for me here. You made that perfectly clear." Mai adjusted her position, stretching her legs out on the balcony rail and leaning against a carved dragon at the corner of the balcony.
"Mai, I'm sorry—" Zuko said standing and turning to the girl in black. "I—"
"Save it Zuko. I'm tired of 'sorry.' Either fix something or leave it where it is, but sorry means nothing to me anymore."
"What was I supposed to do?" Zuko asked, turning again to the courtyard where nobles and foreign dignitaries were gathering in small groups to bid one another farewell. "I had to follow my destiny—"
"—And I'm not in it," Mai finished, drawing her legs in. "Or at least that's what you didn't want to say."
"Mai, that's not true."
"'Good-bye and I'm turning against everything we had together' typically means that." Mai turned and slid fluidly off the balcony rail and stood before Zuko, almost exactly his own height. "Spare me your apologies Zuko. Spare me your pity and regret. If you want to fix something, fix it—and if you aren't going to fix things with me, leave them alone." Zuko bore into her eyes.
"Mai… You know I did what I had to. I had to follow my destiny, and I couldn't have done anything differently."
"Then you're saying there's nothing to fix," Mai told him without losing a breath. "Then don't fix anything."
Mai began to walk, and Zuko stepped out of her way.
"Where will you go?" he asked as she gathered a simple black rucksack.
"Far away. I have boat tickets, passport, letters to send when I'm gone, everything I'll need."
"Are you ever coming back?" Zuko asked, finality ringing in the room. Mai cast what her eyes proclaimed to be a last look at the Fire Lord.
"If my work brings me here," Mai answered. She blinked once while turning, and walked out without looking back.
A/N: Someone said in my poll that I should write more Maiko. I suppose this isn't really Maiko, but I really like it. Anyone catch symbolism, perchance?
In Christ,
ZFF