Envy: Chapter 4:

Mai:

Being dignified was almost an unspoken law in the world of the upper class and royalty. "Behave and don't embarrass me and your father." Had been what her mother had always said to her before her parents had tended to their duties. This was a lesson that echoed in Mai's mind, surrounding her conscience for years now. No emotion, no passion, no pain, no "petty" matters, as her father had regularly drilled into his daughter's head. Mai never changed emotions, never changed her neutral countenance. Her inability to give further expressions than glaring and occasionally smiling was only a product of her upbringing, but that didn't mean that she couldn't feel such negligible emotions like jealousy.

Mai knew it was her own fault. She had decided of her own free will to save Zuko and betray Azula. She supposed that she was only watching the results of her foolishness.

Her whole life her heart had beat faster every time Azula entered the same room as her. Her whole life, Mai's breath had shortened whenever Azula came near her. She had told herself that it was just fear. Only fear. After all, Azula tended to strike cold fear into even the bravest of warriors and Lords; it wasn't a naïve assumption. Mai could hide the truth within herself for only so long. Her crush on Zuko was really just a crush.

It was Azula that Mai knew she had been meant to marry. Perhaps that was why Zuko's son or daughter seemed to weigh so heavily in her stomach, causing intense pains that she suspected even a pregnant woman on the verge of giving birth wouldn't experience. Her unending pains and the heavy black shame on her soul was penance maybe? Penance for betrayal to her true love? How should she know? While she, like all children of the Fire Nation had grown up with stories of Agni, spirits and dragons, she had no idea what their idea of judgment was. There were religions and theories, but she certainly had no idea.

Well, if her pregnancy pains weren't a punishment by Agni for her crime, she had a good idea of what exactly was. Even if she wasn't punished for this treachery by means of pregnancy and labor pains, then Katara the waterbender sharing Azula's bed certainly was the means that Agni was carrying out her sentence.

It wasn't like Mai had reacted when she found out. She never did.

The war that took place in the woman's heart however, was plenty proof for the ebony haired woman. As before, like when she was a little girl, Mai denied that she was jealous. She would not admit to such childish emotions. She told herself that the pang in her chest whenever she caught a glimpse of Katara straddling Azula's thighs as the princess sat on her silk and velvet bed, an adoring smile on the Southern water tribe woman's face as she stared down at her lover, hands grasping Azula's blank face in her hands, was nothing more than disgust over the display of sentimentality. She'd tell her self that the burning in her eyes whenever she caught Azula and Katara looking at each other for too long at the dinner table was just a speck of dirt or microscopic flecks of food caught in her eyes, not the welling of tears.

The most ridiculous lie Mai had ever told herself though, was when the Fire Lady finally collapsed against her and Zuko's bed, weeping into the pillow, flashes of Katara and Azula's unspoken relationship running through her mind and in desperation, the Fire Lady had repeated to herself over and over again that it was just mood swings from the pregnancy. Thank Agni for small favors, because Zuko was not near the room at the time and Ursa and her husband were out with their small daughter in the village nearby.

Azula and Katara were…somewhere; Mai was pretty sure she didn't even want to know anymore.

She had made the most obvious choice for her mate. Zuko was sweet, kind and had every aspect that her parents wanted in her husband and he was now Fire Lord. Mai had won the throne and the ruler of the Fire Nation, but Katara was the one that had gained everything that Mai ever wanted.

If Zuko, Ursa, Iroh or Ty Lee were to ever ask what was wrong, Mai's countenance would never change and she would keep feeding them her lies. But inside, her cracked and splintered heart couldn't take much more.

She wondered what would happen if she were to tell Azula one day. If she were to tell Azula that her heart and soul was in the princess's hands; that Azula could do with her heart and soul as the princess saw fit. Mai was pretty sure she knew how that would turn out. She had known Azula her whole life. She had a feeling she knew how her 'Zula would react. She had known before Boiling Rock, and afterwards, after she had betrayed her princess, she most definitely knew how Azula would act with such knowledge. She would make a point of how much she despised Mai and she would laugh. She would tell Mai that the assassin had her chance. The assassin chose, "Zuzu," and she would lie in the bed that she had made. That was exactly what the princess so eloquently would say.

How was it that Katara, a "savage" from the Southern Water Tribe; a group of people who lived in sealskin huts and furs, who had no concept of "proper" behavior or upper class had won Azula? Azula was a prodigy and a hero of the Fire Nation. How had someone like Katara won Azula's heart when Mai couldn't even get an ounce of respect from the princess? A Southern Water Tribe woman had earned the Fire Nation prodigy's love, and Mai was left with nothing...or what she felt was nothing. Then again, Azula would probably appreciate the irony. The erratic firebender always found it funny that someone as irresponsible as Zuko hadn't earned the crown and yet was Fire Lord and she herself, the hero of the Fire Nation, who had blue fire was simply left with nothing except the Dai Li, her servants and her own Imperial Firebenders, nothing more. Given Azula couldn't prevent herself from pointing out this cruel irony almost every chance she got, perhaps Azula would enjoy the irony of owning Mai's heart, but Katara; someone who hadn't earned her time with the princess like Mai had, and who was of the lowest class in the world, being the one in Azula's bed at the end of the day.

When disparaging thoughts like that crossed Mai's mind, a grim, self-deprecating smile would stretch itself over the assassin's face. Oh yes; Azula would enjoy that irony alright.

And who was she to deny her princess anything?