Knife Throwing

Ty Lee was awake, dressed, and had just finished tying her hair into a long braid. She was humming to herself cheerily, her wide eyes gazing out of the window at the sunshine. Toph, her roommate, was just beginning to pull herself out of bed. Ty Lee saw Toph, and immediately stopped humming. Her hair was a mess and she looked very grumpy.

"What are you looking at, princess?"

Katara and Suki were both already up. The girls had finished getting dressed and were about to leave their room when Suki said,

"Oh, I forgot to ask, what were you and Aang doing by the beach last night?" Katara blushed.

"Just talking. Nothing really."

"Yeah sure, just talking," Suki smiled knowingly.

Aang woke up in the room that he was sharing with Sokka, and stretched. He noticed that outside it was a mild day and that Sokka was still soundly asleep and snoring loudly.

"Sokka? Wake up. Let's get some breakfast."

"Inna minute, more sleep," and he turned over in his bed.

Mai woke up with her head on Zuko's chest. The sunlight was dappled in their room and she began to move around, feeling more relaxed and content than she had in a while. She looked up at Zuko's sleeping face and felt perfect inside. She stayed like that for a few minutes and soon Zuko began to stir. He sighed, stretched, and opened his eyes. He looked down at Mai and they smiled at each other, both of them remembering last night's walk by the beach.

The entire group made their way into the eating area where there was a big plate of fruit for breakfast. Once everyone had sat down with a plate of fruit, Zuko stood up.

"Everyone?" he quickly got the small crowd's attention. Mai had been dreading announcing the news. She knew that it was unrealistic, but she wanted to keep their proposal secretive. She did not want her friends outrush of enthusiasm, and deep down, feared their disapproval. But this was naïve; Mai had recently come to the realization that she was the future Fire Lady, and this could certainly not be kept a secret. Zuko beamed at her; he was so excited to tell his friends. "Mai and I have an announcement." She stood up at her seat next to Zuko. "We have decided to get married."

There was an intense reaction to this news. Their friends cheered and got up out of their seats. Ty Lee threw herself at Mai for an enthusiastic hug. Even Suki and Aang hugged Mai affectionately. Everyone was clapping Zuko on the back and voicing their congratulations. Aang gave Zuko a brotherly hug while Katara said, "that's great guys!" but awkwardly avoided Mai's eyes. Sokka exclaimed, "Oh you crazy kids!" while Ty Lee was gushing about Mai's future position as the Fire Lady.

"Let's have an engagement party tonight!" Suki said.

Toph agreed, "Yeah, let's have a party."

Zuko nodded, "I sent a note to Uncle last night and recruited one of our fastest ships to bring him here. His return message was here when I woke up this morning saying that he left as soon as possible and should arrive late this afternoon. A party this evening is an excellent idea."

Ty Lee and Suki began making party plans and Toph, Katara, Sokka and Aang decided to go down the beach to play some games. Mai was being very quiet. She was a little overwhelmed at all of the attention she had just received. It did make her happy, but she felt like being alone and maybe practicing her knife throwing. Zuko kissed her on the top of the head and went down to the beach with the rest of the group.

Mai walked into the silent courtyard and allowed herself to bask in the peace and quiet. She was wearing her deep red robes, not her simple beach outfit, meaning she had knives and stilettos attached to her concealed wrists and ankles. Mai looked around the courtyard and created targets for herself from the intersections of pieces of stone. She breathed deeply, paused, and then spun around suddenly, fiercely throwing her weapons so that they precisely hit all of her imaginary targets. After throwing, she was frozen in an offensive stance. She breathed deeply once more and then stood up to retrieve her knives.

"You're really good at that." Mai was surprised to hear the Avatar's voice; she had not heard his footsteps, but she showed no outward sign of shock. She turned around to see that he was sitting on a spinning ball of air.

"Why aren't you at the beach?" His ball of air disappeared and he sat down on the stone steps

"I left so that there would be even teams. Will you teach me that?"

"Teach you what?"

"Knife throwing!" Mai looked at Aang carefully and then removed her knives from the grout between the stones and gave him two of them. He held them like daggers, but Mai adjusted his hands so that he was holding them more like brushes.

"You need to flick your wrist and release the knife at the correct moment." She pointed out his targets and told him to start by breathing deeply and focusing hard. Aang spun like he had seen her do and flicked his wrist, but released his knife too late so that it missed its target. He then threw the second one too early and used airbending so that it flew directly into the grout. He grinned at Mai, who, to his surprise, looked amused at his use of airbending. They continued practicing until Aang was able to hit a few targets successfully. Mai then did a complicated demonstration for him on a few techniques that he could learn on his own.

"If you want to be precise, you have to completely focus on your target," she ended her lesson.

"How did you get so good at that?" Aang asked. Mai laughed sarcastically.

"My childhood was boring. I would throw knives around my room out of boredom until eventually I became good at it." She shrugged, and sat down next to him on the stone steps.

"I mean at focusing. How did you learn to be so…" he didn't want to say emotionless, but she said it for him.

"Emotionless?"

"I guess."

"For the same reason. I had a boring childhood. If I was quiet and respectful, I would avoid trouble. I had to learn to control myself."

"That sounds awful, like Toph's parents."

"In a way. My parents are very concerned with social status, like Toph's and like Ty Lee's. They will be overjoyed to hear that I'm the new Fire Lady." Mai rolled her eyes. Aang laughed.

"Have you and Ty Lee been friends since you were little?"

"Yeah, Azula met us at the Fire Nation Academy for girls and decided that she liked us. Ty Lee of course, worshipped her. I was just happy for something to do. And I didn't mind visiting the palace." She smiled to herself. "In the end though, Ty Lee really saved my life when she came to her senses; I couldn't have defended myself against Azula after letting those prisoners escape."

"At the Boiling Rock, you mean?" Mai nodded.

"I did wonder, I mean, I know you were on our side, but if you couldn't have protected yourself, and if you weren't sure that Ty Lee would help you, why did you do it? I'm not sure what I would have done if I was defenseless against Azula."

"Azula would have let them die. I did have one thing on my side though." Mai remembered her old friend. When she went insane, Mai felt pity for her, but was not surprised. "Azula gained control through fear. Because of this, she was not a good judge of people. She was manipulative, but when people are frightened by you, they don't trust you and you never learn enough about them. Especially with someone like me, I'm a better liar than Azula is and she misjudged where my loyalty lie." Aang looked impressed.

"Azula's a really good liar."

"She is. But I'm better. I was scared of her, I can't deny that. But I loved Zuko more, and Azula could never scare me enough to stop that."