A/N: I did not intend to write this, but the plot bunny leaped up and refused to let go. A companion, of sorts, to Book of Hours, especially in the relationship between Mai and Ty Lee and the issues with Mai's mother. Title/lyrics are from the song Deep by Anathema.
( searching oblivion )
open laughter held in distant days
eternal stars have changed
i know that it can't be the same
there's no lament for you tonight.
She wants to say that it started after the fall of Ba Sing Se, but the truth is, it started long before that - what feels like years and years ago, when Zuko is still at the capital and she is in the throes of her girlhood crush on him, and the time comes to make her debut.
(In the Fire Nation, a noble girl's debut calls for high pomp and circumstance, because it usually coincides with the announcement of a betrothal.)
Her parents have arranged her future marriage to a older young man with bitter eyes and a sallow complexion who comes from an old line of high nobility, a line that is known as much for its riches as for its brutality. He sneers at Mai the first time they meet, and sees nothing underneath her dark clothes and perfect-porcelain mask of carelessness. She hates him from the start.
The day before her official debut, however, the bitter man is abruptly called off to serve in the Fire Navy. His and Mai's parents make plans for the marriage to go forth as planned when he returns, but that night, as she sits in her room, Azula walks in and smirks.
"You're welcome," she says, in a low voice, and Mai stares.
"For what?"
"Lao. I put in a good word to Father about him, or, well," she adds, grinning like a knife, "more like a bad word for him, but good for you. He won't be back for several years."
Mai opens and closes her mouth several times. "I... Why?"
"Because I've seen how you look at Zuko," she replies innocently, but Mai is not stupid.
"What are you planning?" she asks harshly, and Azula just continues to smile.
"Oh, Mai, you're so sharp. Don't worry about it now. Just remember... you owe me."
Ba Sing Se has fallen; the high is slow to recede. She is standing on one of the deposed king's massive balconies and reveling in the sunset, letting it warm her skin, when Azula steps out to join her. The door behind her closes with a sharp click and the turning of a lock, and something like panic rises in Mai's gut.
"Do you remember your debut?" she asks, voice deceptively smooth.
Mai nods.
"Do you remember your fiance?"
Mai nods again, and tastes bile on the back of her tongue.
"So you remember our agreement?"
"What do you want?" she asks thickly, and Azula walks over and stands with her against the railing.
"I want you," she begins slowly, "to take what you've always wanted."
Mai blinks, taken off-guard, and turns to Azula, a thousand questions racing through her head. "What?"
"I want you to seduce Zuko," Azula says sharply. "Is that so hard?"
"You're... You want me to... Why?" She would be lying if she said she hasn't thought about it, but it just seems so arbitrary - here they are, on the cusp of taking over the known world, and she is thinking of boys? No, Mai is not so shallow, or at least she's never thought of herself that way, and she knows Azula far too well to think that the girl is some kind of secret hopeless romantic.
"Because I don't trust him," she replies quietly, leaning back and looking up to the sky. "I think he'll run if we let him. I want you to make sure he doesn't."
Mai is overcome with the urge to retch. "I... Zuko trusts me. We were friends when... I can't. You can't ask me to - "
"I'm not asking," Azula says coldly. "I'm ordering. Remember what you owe me, Mai."
"You're asking me to manipulate him," she chokes, oddly affected by the thought. It's just... she and Zuko were friends once, and she can't betray that. Then again, she and Azula are friends now, aren't they? "He trusts me."
"Which is why it has to be you. He doesn't trust Ty Lee, and spirits know I'm not seducing him." Azula shudders in apparent horror, and then smiles at Mai. "Oh, come on. It's what you've dreamed of since you were a little girl."
"But it isn't what he wants," she gasps, and she can't believe she's saying this. Azula is right - she has wanted this since she can remember - but she isn't willing to lie to him to get it. On the other hand, she lies to everyone, doesn't she? "He... He's confused and... He needs someone who can support him, not manipulate him."
"You can support him just fine," Azula insists brightly.
"No," she says, with surprising strength, and then Azula stops smiling.
"You owe me, Mai," she hisses, and steps a little closer. Mai surreptitiously slides one of her knives out of a sheath, but unfortunately, this action conceals Azula doing the same thing. The moment is tense - framed by a heart-wrenchingly beautiful sunset, two women fingering two whisper-sharp blades, each plotting how to bring the other to their way of thinking. Azula's lips are merely a fraction of an inch from Mai's face when she begins speaking again, "Think about what I've given you," she breathes, "all the things you wouldn't have if not for me. Imagine how much more I can offer: freedom, Mai, freedom from politics, from the Fire Nation, from your mother."
Mai's eyes widen slightly - her mother (always her mother, and only Ty Lee knows about her mother, and what does that mean, does that mean that Ty Lee has chosen Azula over Mai, and, and, she can be free from her mother and free from Azula and free from - )
"How - " she begins, but then takes a deep, calming breath, and controls herself. "No," she chokes.
"And think," Azula continues, reeling her in, "when I sit on the throne, you'll be able to go wherever you choose, and Zuko... well, he'll want to find the one person in the whole world who was there for him, the one person he knows he can trust. And you want that to be you, don't you?"
Unwanted tears prick at the back of Mai's eyes, and she wants nothing more than to throw Azula off this balcony, to send her crashing down to the streets of Ba Sing Se, to watch her body break into a thousand pieces below. She cannot speak.
"All I'm asking," Azula whispers, "is for you to take what belongs to you. Everyone goes home happy."
"Except Zuko," she replies in a hoarse voice.
"Nonsense," Azula says cheerfully, now that she knows she's won, "you can make him perfectly happy."
"But it's a lie."
"Since when has that ever mattered?" Azula counters, a glint of something in her eyes. Mai folds behind her mask and re-sheathes her knife.
Ty Lee is standing outside of the drawing room when she exits, dancing on her toes, tears in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Mai," she breathes suddenly. "Azula... she has ways of making people talk."
Mai does not flinch or reply. The betrayal is too new, and cuts too deep.
"I'm so sorry," Ty Lee cries, and clutches at Mai's sleeve. "What did she need from you? I hope it's not..."
"I have to betray the only person who trusts me," she replies blankly. Unspoken - and you gave her the information to make me do this. Ty Lee's face is a mask of horror and shame, and she drops Mai's hand abruptly, hanging her head. Tears fall and splash, unnoticed, onto the floor.
"I trust you," she whispers.
Mai holds her head up higher and walks away to meet Zuko.
Between the party and the meeting on the beach, Azula glares violently at Mai, finally wrenching her aside directly out of the house.
Remember what you owe me, she hisses, and Mai - as always - relents.
After the Boiling Rock, after Sozin's Comet, after Zuko's coronation, after everything is said and done and Azula is locked up tight in prison and Mai is locked up tight in the Fire Nation and Zuko is locked up tight in his happy ending, Mai finally lets go.
She hates herself for it, but she cannot stay, not with the lies that still define her and the betrayals that she prays he will never know. She sends a letter to Ty Lee, asking if there is room for one more among the Kyoshi Warriors, and she replies very quickly that there's always room for one more, and she doesn't try and convince her to stay in the Fire Nation because Ty Lee - for all of her faults - understands that once Azula has tangled up your life, it can't ever be the same.
She leaves in the night, a small, rolled-up letter left on the bed behind her - a cruel irony, yes, but now that she's in his position, she sees how much easier it is this way - and it doesn't explain anything, but is filled with apologies and well-wishes. It stings, when she slips away and realizes that she is leaving behind everything she ever dreamed of and all the hopes she has ever clung to in the darkness, and - worse - that it is all Azula's fault, and - worst - that she will never have the satisfaction of making Azula pay for what she owes Mai.
But in a twisted way, Azula has delivered on her promise.
Mai is, after all, free.