ASAMI

SATO ASAMI HAD MANY SERVANTS, OR, AT LEAST, HER FAMILY DID. When people joked that the Satos were richer than the Fire Lords, they were only half jesting. They owned land, factories, shipping concerns, maintained trading posts in virtually every corner of the world. It was this wealth, this influence, that had earned her a place at the Royal Girls' Academy, where nobility of birth still mattered above all else. This wealth had also gifted her, from birth, with a virtual army of servants.

None of which mattered, though, when she saw that her friends had finally arrived. She flew down to the front door, flung it open, and braced herself for impact.

It was a good thing she did, because Ty Lee, as usual, hurled herself through the open door, as if she had been running at full tilt not a moment before. The embrace was bone-crushing, and the kisses on her cheeks were loud enough to make her ears ring. Asami didn't mind, though; she didn't even mind the mind-piercing squeal that announced that Ty Lee had truly arrived.

Such preliminaries done, Ty Lee released her and went bounding into the house, hugging every servant and ruffling the hair of every child she stumbled across. Asami allowed herself a sigh of relief, before turning to her other guest. She bowed low, as befitted their relative stations, and said, a smile on her face and in her eyes, "Afternoon, Mai."

Mai gave her version of a smile right back, along with a shallower, but still respectful, bow. "Afternoon, Asami." She stepped over the threshold, and the girls exchanged perfectly polite, perfectly respectable kisses on the cheeks. Because that's Mai, Asami thought, always perfectly respectable in every conceivable way. "I pray that you are well?"

Asami gestured into the house, and together, they began to walk side-by-side towards the room where they would have lunch. "About as well as can be expected." They spoke in the polished accents of the upper classes, the smooth, rounded tones that Asami worked so hard at and that Mai, to Asami's eternal envy, seemed to have been born with. "I had a letter from Shingo today."

Mai's eyebrow popped up, and her voice rose a polite half-octave. "Oh, is that so? And how is your lovely fiancé faring out in the wilds of the former Earth Kingdom?"

Asami sighed. Her fiancé, Katori Shingo, was an officer in His Majesty's Navy, prowling a coastline too big to ever be effectively controlled, hunting for pirates, rebels, smugglers, and anything else they happened to come across. "He's alive, which is about the best one can say about these things. There are some things that really worry him, though."

"Oh?" Mai sounded not the least bit interested, and Asami was sure she probably wasn't. I only invite her so I can hang out with Ty; one goes with the other, as the whole city knows. Fighting back her burst of unwarranted pique, she put on a smile and shrugged.

"Just this and that. He can't be too specific, of course."

"Naturally."

"But still, it's the things that lurk between the lines that reveal the full picture."

"You know," Mai said, still sounding distracted, "I would very much like to see this letter."

Asami had to allow herself a moment of blatant confusion at that. "You would? Why on earth would you want to do that?"

Mai shrugged, holding up a hand so as to examine her (naturally immaculate, Asami noted with chagrin) fingernails. "Oh, curiosity, mostly." She replaced the hand in her sleeves and strode on. "I've never gotten a letter from a soldier, but I always wanted one. I'd like to see what it's like."

"It's not much, really," Asami said, not entirely sure she wanted the Lady Arinori Mai to see any of her letters. "Just the usual stuff that a soldier writes, in that cagey language they have to use to get past the censors."

Something flashed through Mai then, something that Asami couldn't put a name to, gone so fast she wasn't entirely sure it had ever been there. "That's easy to say for someone who has a boy to write to her."

Asami bit her tongue, and almost smacked herself on the forehead. Dammit, Asami, stepped right into that one, didn't you? Just had to remind her of poor Zuko. "Well," she said, trying to move past the subject that all who knew Mai called The Unspeakable, "if you really want to see it, I don't mind."

Mai gave her a perfectly polite smile. Just once, I'd like to smack her, see what happened. She'd probably still smile. "Well, if you don't mind…" She turned away, and the smile faded. "Plus, Ty would just love to see it."

"Yes," Asami admitted, "she would." She was going to show Ty Lee anyways, so they could gush over it together, but she supposed it wouldn't hurt to let Mai in on the fun. Assuming she has fun... "You know," she continued, still looking for a subject change, "it's funny. I barely know him. We only met a few times, for the betrothal ceremonies and everything, before he got his orders and shipped out."

Mai sighed. "Yes, that is the way of things, isn't it? I hope your miai went more smoothly than mine did."

Asami bit down on a giggle; Mai and Zuko's miai had been the stuff of legend at the Girls' Academy. "Well, he didn't trip and fall on me, if that's what you're asking."

"A pity," came the reply, along with a strange, wistful expression on Mai's face. Before Asami got a chance to analyze it, though, they had arrived at their destination. Servants opened the doors, and there before them was a small table, covered with snacks and several bottles of wine, while in a corner, Ty Lee was performing a handstand, trying desperately to make one of the servants burst into hysterics.

Asami had none of the servant's qualms, though. She giggled and smiled, and forgot all about the strange things that she sensed lurked behind the Lady Arinori Mai's perfectly correct smiles.

Hey, it's Asami! Because, once you bring in Korra, why not as many of the others, too? And I like Asami.

Before anyone complains, keep in mind that this is a different world than the world of LOK. That means that Asami's position, as the daughter of a wealthy merchant in a nation at war and very much obsessed with status, is very different from that in LOK. So, she's going to be a bit different, in that, she's going to start out in a much different place and headspace than we would normally be used to seeing her in. Do me a solid, and be patient.

Heh...you know what's really fun about finally posting this? So my wife can finally see what I've been rambling about. Seriously, she knows all the spoilers.

Moving on...in the next chapter, we check in with the Krew, and Sokka and Azula bond. Stay tuned!