Warning: Implications of sexual abuse in this chapter. If you've read Life In a Circle (formerly Beginning) and Marauders, which it seems like a lot of you have, this probably doesn't come as a shock to you, but I still wanted to mention it. It's kind of a vague implication in this chapter, but I will probably build on it as we go.


It is still dark in the Fire Nation when Ty Lee and Suki arrive at the docks. Suki is gripping Ty Lee's arm, fingers digging into the skin over her bicep, and she does not seem to want to let go, like if Suki holds on tight enough, she can keep her here.

Zuko and Mai are already waiting, and standing with impeccable posture between them, gazing with wide eyes across the bay toward the Gates of Azulon, is Azula. Ty Lee can see dirt lining the hems of their robes, and she realizes that they must have walked all the way across town, just as she and Suki did, because the palanquins would be much too conspicuous. No one is to know what is happening, after all.

"Are you ready?" Zuko asks as they approach. His eyes flit to the sack that is slung over her shoulder and she expects him to ask if she has all of her things. She does not own very much. Her time with the circus has made her a light packer, and whenever she goes somewhere new, she inevitably ends up leaving half of her belongings behind.

She gives him a tight nod and tries to smile. He attempts to return it, but she thinks they probably both just look like they are trying not to throw up.

"I need to talk to you about a couple of things before you leave." He jerks his head to his right and she follows him away from the group, wondering why they couldn't have done this yesterday in the palace instead of standing out in the open with Azula looking like she is thinking about making a run for it. He holds a stack of papers out for her to take. "Those will get you into Ba Sing Se. I looked through them last night. They say you're cousins from a village in the United Republic."

"Where did you get these?" Ty Lee asks. She must sound stupid—Zuko is the Fire Lord, and he can probably get pretty much anything if he asks the right people—but she has always gotten the impression that travel into Ba Sing Se is extremely difficult without legitimate papers.

"Let's just say I owe the Avatar another favor," he answers quickly. "Anyway, Aang says you should play up your loyalty to the Earth Kingdom. Maybe tell the guards at the wall you're fleeing because you want to live under your rightful king or not alongside Fire Nation citizens or something like that. If you have the opportunity to throw in a bad word about me, I'm sure that wouldn't hurt, either."

"But Zuko," Ty Lee argues. "You're my friend. I can't just go… making up lies about you. What if they spread?"

"Then that's the price I'll pay for my sister's life," he answers resolutely. He has always had a bit of a flare for the dramatic. She will miss that about him. "Remember, this is for Azula."

Ty Lee gives the Princess an appraising, sidelong look. "Okay," she finally sighs. "But when we get back, I'm going to apologize to you for every mean thing I had to say."

He smiles down at her, half amused, half concerned. "I'll look forward to it." And then he is all business again. "My uncle is in the city, but you should only go to him in the case of an emergency. Once Kuei realizes Azula is missing, I'm sure he'll have my uncle's tea shop watched." He follows her gaze to his sister and tugs at his collar. "Look, there's something else I should probably tell you. It's about her condition."

"You mean why she keeps talking about someone trying to get her?" Ty Lee gasps.

"No, not exactly," Zuko replies. "It's about her firebending."

She sighs. "I know. It's gone."

"But I know why."

"What?" Ty Lee can feel her eyes growing wide as she lifts her head so that their eyes meet.

He shrugs. "The same thing happened to me after I left the Fire Nation on the Day of the Black Sun." He lowers his voice. "It was because I'd lost my drive to bend. Firebenders motivate themselves with rage. That's how Azula and I were taught. When I let go of everything I thought I wanted, I couldn't bend anymore."

"But you can bend now," Ty Lee points out.

"Yeah, I had find another motivation," he explains. "And I had to go see the firebending masters."

"The firebending masters?"

"Yeah, umm," he glances back at Azula before continuing. "They live on an island north of the Boiling Rock, near the Western Air Temple, or, at least, what's left of it. Listen," he leans toward her. "Promise me you won't take Azula there. She can't go like this. The Sun Warriors… well they didn't exactly tell Aang and me what happened if the masters didn't find you worthy, but it was implied to have been extremely unpleasant."

"Why did you even tell me then?" Ty Lee folds her arms across her chest.

"I just thought you should know," he answers with another shrug. "Just in case."

"Zuko, the sun is starting to come up," Mai calls. She is gripping Azula's hand tightly, like she is afraid the Princess will try to run away. Maybe she is.

"Well," Zuko says, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Good luck. Take care of my sister for me."

"I will," she promises. She turns and leaps at Suki, enveloping her in a hug.

"Goodbye," her captain whispers, and her voice is rough, like she is doing everything she can not to cry.

"We'll see each other again. I promise." She gives Suki a final squeeze before pulling away and turning to Mai, who takes her by surprise by transferring Azula's hand to Zuko and actually spreading her arms.

"I thought you didn't like hugs," Ty Lee comments, but she pounces on her friend, wrapping her arms around Mai's slender body and squeezing tighter than she ever has before.

"Just this once," Mai replies. "So I hope you have a good memory." She sighs and Ty Lee can feel her friend's breath tickle her hair. This moment would be so much sweeter if Ty Lee did not know that the only reason Mai is doing this because she is afraid that the next time she sees Ty Lee, it will be at the gallows in Ba Sing Se. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you more."

Mai drops her arms and takes a step back. Her face is impassive as always, accept that her eyebrows seem pinched together.

"Mai, I need you to do something for me."

"Why am I already getting a bad feeling about this?"

Ty Lee steps toward her again and lowers her voice. "Will you ask Suki to go to the street fair in Fire Fountain City with you this weekend?"

"Excuse me?" Mai's eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

"Well, we were supposed to go together but now that I'm leaving… please, Mai?" she begs. "You both need a friend, and you'll like each other. I promise." She juts her lips out and tries to make her eyes as sad as possible.

"Fine," Mai grumbles. "But only because I still owe you for saving me at the Boiling Rock."

Someone loudly clears their throat and when Ty Lee looks over, Azula is glaring at them. "If you're finished crying all over each other, I'd rather not miss my ship."

Zuko nods swiftly, but then he is wrapping his sister in his arms.

"Unhand me!" Ty Lee hears her command against his shoulder, her voice muffled by his robes. It would be comical, Ty Lee thinks, under different circumstances.

Reluctantly, the Fire Lord drops his arms. "Try to stay out of trouble," he tells her, and his voice cracks on the last word.

"Zuzu, your weakness is showing," Azula replies as Ty Lee takes her hand and begins to pull her up the ramp onto the ship. She does not look back at Mai and Suki and Zuko. If she starts crying, she will not be able to stop.


The emptiness of the ship is eerie. Ty Lee knew they would be going aboard before the sailors arrived back after their leave so that Azula could arrive unseen by anyone except for the captain, but she had not expected it to be this eerie. They can hear creaks and groans as they make their way through the hull to their cabin.

"We're sharing a room?" Azula asks sharply as Ty Lee drops her bag on one of the beds. Their quarters are small with four bunks built into the walls, a samll table screwed into the floor with an oil lamp sitting atop it, and not enough space for much else.

"Of course," she replies, dropping down beside her bag. "No one knows you're on board. Why would I need two rooms to myself?" Azula groans and crawls into the bunk opposite her. "Besides, you'll have to get used to it," Ty Lee adds. "Our apartment in Ba Sing Se will probably only be one room."

"Why don't you do us both a favor and just turn me over to the Earth King once we get there?" Azula complains. "What am I supposed to do all day? Lay here?"

Ty Lee shrugs. "I don't know. What did you do all day in the asylum?"

"Plot the mysterious deaths of the nurses mostly," Azula mutters and Ty Lee laughs.

"Well, I would appreciate if you didn't do that to me."

Azula sighs loudly, dramatically, and falls onto her back on the mattress. "How long is this voyage?"

"A week," Ty Lee answers as she reaches into her sack. "So you might as well get comfortable." Her fingers brush the string of beads and she fishes it out and drapes it over the base of the oil lamp. "Seriously, Azula." She glances at her roommate while thrusting her hand back into the sack. "You might not have a bed again for a while."

"Excuse me?" The Princess sits back up abruptly and her head collides with the bunk above her with a dull clang. "What will we sleep on if not beds?"

"Bed rolls," Ty Lee chirps as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "Beds are luxuries, Azula. Like bath tubs. They don't have them in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se."

"We won't have bath tubs either?" Azula's voice is close to panicked now, and it is all Ty Lee can do not to laugh. "How… how will we bathe?"

"Out of a bucket, of course," she answers, turning her head to conceal her wide smile. "It's not so bad. I did it all the time in the circus."

"Ughh," Azula lies back down and buries her face in the pillow. "I feel like a peasant."

"I think that's kind of the point," Ty Lee points out as she pulls out a folded pink quilt and spreads it over top of the stiff, grey sheets. The cabin… almost looks like she could live there. "Don't worry," she adds. "I'll keep you company. I won't let you waste away in here by yourself."

"How very charitable of you," Azula mutters.

"I like to think so." The acrobat reaches into the sack once more and pulls out a mobile hung with colorful cloth flowers. She twists the wire around the rungs of the bunk above her and lies back against her own pillow to admire it.

After a few moments, she grows bored and her gaze shifts to her roommate. Azula lies curled in a loose ball under the sheets, facing toward the wall. Her entire half of the tiny room is grey. Ty Lee can feel her aura fading just looking at it. She sits up and pulls the sack up onto the bed to sift through it. Her fingers close around a soft piece of fabric and she pulls it free. It is a large, woven wall hanging she obtained during her brief stay on Kyoshi Island, before the Warriors were called back to the Fire Nation. It is embroidered with flowers and hummingbirds, and she thinks she can smell the cool breeze off the sea just by looking at it.

She drops her legs over the side of the mattress and crosses the room in only two steps. Then she throws the piece of material over the top of Azula's bed.

"What are you doing?" Azula mutters, her voice soft from fatigue.

"Brightening up the room," she replies simply. "That's one of my favorite things. Be careful with it."


"What is this?" Azula eyes the concoction of the plate Ty Lee is holding out for her with suspicion.

"Dinner," Ty Lee answers cheerfully, shaking the plate in front of her. "Here, take it."

Azula wrinkles her nose. "That is not food. Are you sure it's even eatable?"

"Uh huh," she nods her head enthusiastically. "I tried it out. Come on. Take a bite. This is all we're going to have for the next week anyway."

"Perhaps I'll just starve." But she takes the plate from Ty Lee and gingerly picks something brown and flakey off of it.

"Those ones are kind of salty," Ty Lee describes as she watches Azula hold it to her nose and sniff. "And the green ones are bitter, and the orange ones are spicy. You'll like those. You always liked spicy food."

They are sitting on the floor of their tiny cabin with one plate between the two of them, because Ty Lee is supposed to be staying in here alone, and Azula will not eat. She should have expected this, she realizes. She has seen how thin Azula is, and she knows she was fed three times a day in the asylum. Ty Lee had expected watching over Azula to at least be exciting. She imagined chasing her all over the ship, she imagined heated arguments. She did not imagine feeling like she is babysitting a four year old. Then again, it has only been one day.

Finally, the Princess places the food on her tongue and swallows, a look on her face like she'd just had something particularly pungent held under her nose. "Disgusting."

"Try it with the rice," Ty Lee suggests, poking at the small, white heap with her chopsticks. "You have to eat, Azula. The food won't get that much better in Ba Sing Se. I'm a horrible cook."

"Of course you are," Azula sneers. "You were raised with servants. Maybe I should have brought that earth peasant instead. At least she's used to living in squalor."

"But won't it be fun to see how the other side lives?" she prods. "It'll be a whole new experience!"

"I lived in an asylum for three years, Ty Lee," Azula reminds her. "How much other side can you get?"

"You still had someone to clean up after you," Ty Lee answers. "And someone to prepare your meals for you, and someone to wash your hair for you."

"I had to make my own bed," Azula complains.

Ty Lee raises an eyebrow, because that is such a ridiculous, and yet such an incredibly Azula argument to make. "You had a bed."

Azula scoops up a pile of rice and some of the sticky orange things. "If you're trying to make me feel better about this arrangement, you're going about it all wrong."

"I'm not trying to make you feel better," Ty Lee replies. "I'm trying to prepare you for—what? Are you okay?"

Azula faces suddenly very red and her eyes are watering. She swallows heavily and then opens her mouth wide to breathe. "Too spicy," she chokes.

Ty Lee picks up one of the orange things and places it on her tongue experimentally. "It's… not that hot, Azula. We used to have meals much spicier at the palace."

"I guess I'm just not used to it anymore," Azula murmurs.


Ty Lee is awoken in the middle of the night by a long, pained groan.

"Azula?" she murmurs sleepily, rolling over and rubbing her eyes.

"Ty Lee." The voice is small, forced. Ty Lee is on her feet immediately.

"Azula, what's wrong?"

"I think…" A pause. Heavy breathing. "I think I might be sick."

Azula rolls over, and her face is as white as when she was wearing the Kyoshi Warrior makeup. Her fists are clenched in the sheets, shaking. She makes a muted gagging sound, and her shoulders heave.

"We have to get you out of here," Ty Lee decides, because she does not want the room they have to live in for six more days to smell like vomit, nor does she know where she would hide Azula while she called someone in to clean up the mess. "Come on." She tugs the Princess' arm over her shoulders and pulls them to their feet. She wrenches open the door to the room and drags them up the narrow stairway toward the deck.

"What if… someone sees?" Azula asks weakly between pants.

"Don't worry," Ty Lee assures her. "I know a spot where you can't be seen from the watch towers."

"How…?"

"Well, back on your ship, on the way back from the Earth Kingdom, I used to go there with one of the sailors and—"

"Stop," Azula gags, raising a shaking hand. "I'm sorry I asked."

Ty Lee rolls her eyes. –and watch the sunrise, she was going to say. When he was supposed to be on duty. But she will let Azula think what she wants to think. It is not as if Ty Lee is inexperienced, after all. There is no harm in adding another notch to her figurative belt. Besides, the sailor had been well-built, handsome, interesting to talk to. If he hadn't had a fiancée waiting for him back in Shu Jing, Azula's inference would probably be right.

The night air is cool and smells of salt. Ty Lee has always loved traveling by ship, but she does not have time to enjoy the sound of the waves against the hull or the faint creaking as they make their way across the deck. She rushes Azula to the side of the boat and forces her head out over the water. The Princess' hair hangs limply around her face, and Ty Lee gathers it up and twists it together. "I thought you'd been on lots of ships before," she comments as she begins to rub her friend's back.

Azula closes her eyes and shakes her head. Her face seems even paler now than it did before, if that is even possible. "Only twice. To and from the Earth Kingdom. I was sick both times."

"Well, you could have at least warned me," Ty Lee grumbles, but there is more kindness in her tone than annoyance.

And then Azula is heaving, her much too prominent shoulder blades convulsing under her thin robe. Ty Lee can hear a distant splash. "So no more of those orange things, huh?" she asks, masking a giggle, as she continues to move her hand in slow circles. Azula does not answer. She is gasping for breath, silent tears sliding down her cheeks. And then another gagging sound, another convulsion of her shoulder blades, another series of distant splashes.

"I didn't know you got seasick on the way back from the Earth Kingdom." It is an obvious statement, she knows. She was on the deck of that ship constantly. If Azula kept it from her, it was certainly by design, but after all those years of thinking her friend was the perfect Princess, greater than a human, every chink in her quickly deteriorating armor comes as a shock.

She expects some sort of scathing remark. She expects Azula to ask if Ty Lee thought she'd told her everything, if she really thought she had the right to know something so personal. That is what fourteen-year-old Azula would have done. Seventeen-year-old Azula simply replies, "No one did."

Ty Lee pictures Azula hunched over the railing by herself, hair whipping freely around her face. She would have been much more concerned with keeping her armor clean. She was always so uptight about that armor.

When she does not reply, Azula speaks again. "It's freezing out here."

"Are you ready to go back inside?" Ty Lee asks, even though the Princess has not regained any of her color.

"No," is her friend's reluctant answer.

She tries again. "Do you want me to go get you a blanket?"

"Yes."

So Ty Lee practically leaps back down the stairs and sprints to their quarters, where she pulls the quilt off her bed. Azula is crumpled against the railing by the time she returns, and she immediately gives herself a mental kick for not bringing anything to wipe her face.

As if she can read minds, Azula wipes at the residue crusting her mouth. "This must be an exciting night for you," she mutters.

"What do you mean?" Ty Lee asks as she drapes the quilt around Azula's narrow shoulders and drops to the deck beside her, her arm once again taking up residence on her friend's back.

Azula pulls the quilt tighter around herself. "The Fire Nation's infamous Princess," she replies. "At her very worst. Right in front of you. Does it make you think he was right about me, after all?"

Ty Lee grimaces and ignores the reference to the ever-mysterious he. Azula does look rather pitiful, shivering against the metal off the ship, her eyes drooping closed, but Ty Lee remembers nights at the asylum, watching the orderlies hold Azula down as she sobbed and screamed until her voice was gone. She remembers before Azula lost her bending, when the restraints were a necessity for the safety of everyone involved, even though Azula sometimes rubbed her skin raw against them. She remembers a morning not long before she left for the circus, when she and Mai had waited over an hour for Azula to open the door to her room, and when she finally had, there were damp trails down her cheeks, bruises speckling her shoulders, and hastily concealed stains on her sheets.

As she traces her hand along Azula's spine and watches the Princess lean back though the railing to wretch again into the sea, she murmurs. "I don't think you're at your worst."

The night passes in silence, and when the sun begins to peak over the horizon, Ty Lee half carries her companion back down into their room and deposits her gently on the bed. "Try to sleep," she advises. "I'll go find you a bucket or something."

"I never sleep," Azula mutters, but she is out before Ty Lee has even closed the door behind her.


For the remainder of the voyage, Ty Lee and Azula do not keep a regular sleep schedule. They go to the deck in the dead of night and Azula hangs through the railing, vomiting up everything she has eaten that day, while Ty Lee rubs her back and tries to keep a conversation going. It is always relatively one-sided. Then, as the sun comes up, Ty Lee gathers Azula and takes her back down to her bunk, where she continues to hang over the side of her mattress, balancing herself over the top of the battered, tin bucket Ty Lee stole from the mess hall, where it was holding mop water, until she passes out from fatigue. Ty Lee vows to never take her on a ship again.

She does not remember the voyage from the Earth Kingdom being like this. She remembers not seeing very much of the Princess, hence why she felt the need to befriend and watch the sunrise with sailors, but she'd assumed Azula was just dutifully preparing to return to the palace. Now she understands why they always took airships when they were not travelling very far.

On the last night of the voyage, Ty Lee entertains herself with a stained deck of cards she found lying deep under her bunk on the third day. The back of each card bears a faded picture of two interlocking dragons. She thinks she will take them with her when they disembark tomorrow morning. Azula sits curled up beside her, her forehead propped against the railing on the deck, shivering and panting.

"What do you think you'll do when we get to Ba Sing Se?" Azula asks.

Ty Lee is surprised, because conversing with Azula during these nights on the deck has been like pulling teeth. She lays a card down on one of the piles in front of her, a four on a five, and looks up at her companion. "What do you mean?"

"Surely we'll need money," Azula explains. "How do you plan to get it?"

Ty Lee shrugs. "Probably get a job. Maybe you will too."

Azula laughs bitterly, but she is cut off by a groan and she thrusts her head between the rails. "Surely, you're not serious. I can't work." Can't, Ty Lee notices. Not won't.

"I'm sure there's something you can do," Ty Lee replies.

"Like what? I've lost my only skill. I might as well not even be here. I know you think so. Even he thinks so." Her voice is becoming steadily shriller, and Ty Lee wonders how this conversation could have gone south so quickly.

Azula turns away for a moment to dry heave, and when she faces Ty Lee again, her eyes are wide and furious. "He wants me to just accept my fate and throw myself over the side of the ship! Do you want that, Ty Lee? It would certainly make your life easier."

"Of course not, Azula," Ty Lee hurries to answer. She looks around nervously, but the deck is still empty from what she can see.

"Why not?" Azula demands. "I'm just a burden on my more talented friends! I'm worse than Zuko!" Ty Lee has never met Fire Lord Ozai, but she has heard his daughter repeat him verbatim enough times throughout their lives to realize that this sounds exactly like something he would say.

"Azula, you have to keep it down," she pleads. "Someone will hear you."

The words seem to go right over the Princess' head. She is getting worked up, and Ty Lee braces herself for what is coming. "He sent those men to kill me! I don't care what Zuko says! I know he did! You're deadly, Ty Lee! Did he send you to kill me too? Are you luring me to my death?"

"Did who send me to kill you?" Ty Lee asks desperately. "I would never do that, Azula—"

"My father!"

The suspicions that she has had for months now have been confirmed. It makes sense. She knows from Zuko that the first two years after the war were filled with hallucinations of Ursa. It seems logical that, with that issue resolved, her mind would fixate on the other person who made her feel inadequate, the person who pretended to care about her, only to pull the rug out from under her when she was at her most unstable.

"Azula," she answers hesitantly. "Your father is dead."

"No, he's not!" her companion insists. "He's out there! He's coming for me!"

Ty Lee shakes her head vigorously. "He died in prison last year. He stopped eating."

"Did you really think the mighty Phoenix King, divine ruler of the entire world, could be killed by something as mundane as starvation? It was a ruse! He won't rest until I am no longer alive to dishonor the Fire Nation! He told me himself!"

"Azula, stop!"

She lunges forward and clutches Azula's head to her chest, the way she has seen Zuko do. Zuko was always the only person who was ever able to calm her. Azula lets out a scream that reverberates through her body and beats her fists against Ty Lee's stomach and sides, but three years in the asylum have weakened her considerably. Ty Lee only holds her tighter. She can handle bruises. Azula will calm down eventually. She always calms down eventually. Ty Lee only hopes it will be before she wakes the entire ship.

"He's coming for me," she is muttering, her voice muffled by Ty Lee's chest. "He's coming for me. He'll find me. He won't fail. He never fails."

Her breath is coming in gasps, and she dives for the side of the ship and vomits into the ocean once more. Her fit of rage seems to snap like a twig as she hangs through the railing, staring into the water below her. Ty Lee can hear her breath slow.

"Azula, do you see that?" She murmurs after a few moments of silence. The sun is just beginning to peak over the horizon, but for once, it does not seem endless. It looks near and it has ridges, not like the smooth surface of the water. It looks like mountains.

"What?" Azula snaps. She still looks angry, but now she also looks tired, and Ty Lee thinks it might be best if she gets the Princess to bed as soon as possible.

"Land."

Azula lifts her head feebly, but her eyes widen at the approaching shoreline.

"We should go back downstairs," Ty Lee adds. "If we're close to port, the sailors will be up soon."

Azula allows Ty Lee to lead her back to their room, where Ty Lee drops her onto the bed and pulls the sheets over her. She tucks the Princess' hair behind her ear in a gesture that she knows Azula would never allow if she wasn't tired and seasick. "Get some sleep," she murmurs. "We're going to have to try to find a ride to Full Moon Bay, but I don't know how long that's going to take. We might have to walk a while."

"Miles of walking will almost be welcome after this nightmare," Azula grumbles. Ty Lee does not respond. It is the most optimistic thing she has heard Azula say about this entire trip, and she does not want to ruin it. Instead, she sets to work repacking her belongings. She takes down the cloth mobile, gathers the string of beads from around the oil lamp, and folds up the quilt. When she is confident that Azula is sleeping deeply enough, she pulls the wall hanging off of her companion's bed. She scans the room one last time and drops the deck of cards into her sack as well. She likes to collect souvenirs from her travels, and, for better or for worse, this has been a very memorable week.

They have to wait to disembark until the sailors are gone, but when they finally step off the ramp onto the docks, Ty Lee nearly expects Azula to drop to her knees and kiss the earth, like she used to see some of the Navy men do when she went to meet her father at port as a child. Instead, she crosses her arms and stares at her friend.

"Well?" she barks. "Now what? How do you propose we find a ride to Ba Sing Se in this hovel?"

Hovel is not exactly the right term. The fishing village they appear to be in is a little run down, not at all what Azula is used to seeing in the Fire Nation, except for the docks, which look new, and Ty Lee expects were installed during the occupation, but Ty Lee has spent a lot more time in the Earth Kingdom than her companion, and she thinks the town appears to be doing relatively well. "We're at a port," she replies with a shrug. "I'm sure there must be someone going that direction from here."

Azula raises an eyebrow in a way that tells Ty Lee she does not believe her at all. "Don't worry," she adds to reassure the Princess. "This is an adventure. Half the fun is making it up as you go."


A/N: First off, I want everyone to know that I am aware that the magnitude of Azula's bending loss is inconsistent with Zuko's, and that will be resolved. It wasn't just an oversight on my part.

Okay, so I've had a couple of complaints about Mai's characterization, so what I want to ask you guys to do is, if/when you leave your review, let me know what you think. Do you like her characterization? Do you not like it? If not, what don't you like about it? I, of course, have my own interpretation of the character, but I will certainly take anything you guys say into account, because out of character-ness in fanfiction is kind of one of my biggest pet peeves.

Also, I'm only about 1000 words into Chapter 5 right now, which is about a fifth of the way done. I had a memo due today, and I have a midterm on Friday that I'm pretty concerned about. The moral of this story is that I'm not sure it will be done by Saturday, because I don't see myself having a lot of time to work on it for a while. I'm going to try really hard to have it up sometime on Saturday, but, as much as I hate it, Civ Pro has to come first. If I don't make it, I'm going to hold off on posting it until Wednesday. The reason for that is, if I were to post it on Sunday or Monday, I would probably not have Chapter 6 done by Wednesday, and I would have to push that one back too, and it would just throw off my entire schedule. So, yeah, hopefully I'll see you guys on Saturday, but if not, I'll definitely see you next Wednesday.