Please note, I originally wrote this BEFORE season 3 started, I just forgot to post it here before the premiere. A friend of mine complained that there were not enough good Maiko fanfics that didn't butcher the characters. Sorry if it sucks, it was not forced...but most of my Avatar stories have come to me, I haven't tried to write without being inspired first before.

While this started as Maiko, there is a lot of concentration on Mai because, I don't know much about her character. How did she go from being the shy girl in Zuko Alone to the deadly assassin we see her as now? So I did some research on her character and studied the new screenshots from The Awakening previews.

So I assume that a lot of her depressing attitude is attributed to a lack of Zuko for 3 years. I know I would be depressed, lol. But yea, there is definitely something between them, and this is my crack at what that might be.

Maiko, part one

Mai had spent most of her spring with Azula and Ty Lee, tracking down the Avatar and the fugitive Fire Nation royals, Iroh and Zuko. When the Fire Nation princess had first approached her, asking for her help, she was grateful to find anything that took her away from the quiet, dullness of Omashu. Besides, Mai knew better than to deny Azula what she wanted, but the last thing she was expecting was to be tracking down the boy who had been her only escape from the noble life of the Fire Nation. The boy who had saved her from becoming just like the rest of them.

Elegance, protocol, and politics were not exactly things that interested Mai when she was younger. In the abnormal shyness that plagued her in her youth, what she truly wished for was adventure, but that was not for Fire Nation noblility. She learned very early in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls that in the Fire Nation upper class was all a dance of half-truths and lies; that she was born into a world where trust did not exist and backstabbing your peers was socially acceptable as long as you were loyal to the Fire Nation and the Fire Lord.

The nobility was all a hypocrisy, she couldn't stand it, she hated it. That is where he came in, Zuko. He was nothing like the other children, nor even like his father and Azula; he was his mother's child. While he was not as quick to learn like his sister, when he put his heart into something, he fought and struggled to achieve his goals. Other spoiled children were lazy and gave up too easily, letting others do the work for them. She admired his persistence and his candidness was a refreshing change from the knavery she had come to expect from others.

It was his mother, Ursa, who had raised him like this. She had protected him, left him untainted by the trickery and deciet common to the courts. In shielding him from this corruption, she had essentially ruined his future in the eyes of many nobles, but Mai did not care. With Zuko, she could speak freely, knowing he would not seek to use it against her. Before she knew it, Mai found herself thinking of him often, wishing she could spend time with him more. She usually did not have much to say, but Zuko could talk for the both of them.

When Azula was not around, they would talk about their training. Mai's parents were trying to turn her into a lady. The young Fire Nation prince would laugh and tell her how silly that was. He could not comprehend things like etiquette, all he cared about was becoming a great warrior and some day a great leader, so that he could impress his father. That devotion, that loyalty he gave so freely to those he loved was something she craved in her youth, and had never recieved it from friends.

As they grew up together, they could barely hide their friendship, which had developed into something closer as they grew up. Zuko had barely changed, he was still adamant in his quest to gain his father's love, especially after his mother's disappearance. Mai, knowing the cost of any display of feelings, tried to be as supportive as she could without letting the others see, and awhile, it worked, more or less thanks to his Uncle Iroh. For a time, life seemed fine, it was the closest thing to happiness Mai thought she had ever experienced.

Then, when she least expected it, he was stolen from her. Zuko was banished by his own father to search for a non-existant Avatar. She felt abandoned, not by the banished prince, but by those who were glad to see him go. Her family, so eager to fall under the Fire Lord's good graces, praised Ozai for his decision. As week after week passed, she became more distant from others, throwing herself into the warrior training she had taken up years earlier. Ever since Zuko's talks about warriors, glory, and honor when they were kids, she wanted to join him in the hopes that she could drown away the dismal life of being noble born on the battelfield. That, and she knew that to become a hinderance, useless around Azula, would not bode well for her.

For nearly three years she worked, pushing herself to master as many forms of dagger mastery and projectiles as she could. This rare art would prove more useful in combat against both hand-to-hand fights, as well as against benders. As each day passed, the only solitude she could achieve from the dreadfully bleak lessons given at the academy was in practicing her combat skills. Soon, the past began to fade, and she lost touch with the shy girl she had once been years ago, trading it in for a more sarcastic, demeaning attitude to erase all that she once was. This would help her survive in the Fire Nation.

Several times she tried to convince her father to let her leave and travel, so she could start testing her skills on the battlefield. There was nothing to do at home. Maids cleaned, her father was paid handsomely by the Fire Lord, and everything in life was given to her on a whim. Life could not have been more boring. She wanted some action, something to make the time pass and maybe enjoy herself for once. Her father's disapproval was made apparent by a stream of shouts and complaints about how unbecoming a lady she was.

Never again did she bother to broach the subject, as her father found small ways to annoy her as he sought to ensure that she would never see battle. Life went on with all the same lackluster routines. As winter ended and spring returned, her family had been sent to the Earth Kingdom to claim Omashu in the name of the Fire Lord. For the first time in almost a year, Mai found herself thinking of Zuko. There were nothing but rumors to be heard of him and she wondered if he were still alive, if he were still the same Zuko or if the banishment had changed him. Had the corruption that plagued the Fire Nation finally touched him?