Travels through the Alphabet with Mai

Part 7: Graduation

She hated the fuss. Mai preferred to blend into the background like she always did rather than endure the graduation ceremony. The Royal Fire Academy for Girls was the nation's most elite school and her parents had insisted she attend. She was a year older than the other graduates. That was her parents' fault as well. They kept her at home a year just so that she and Princess Azula would be in the same class.

"You'll grow even closer that way," her mother had reasoned in that way of hers, a way that allowed for no argument.

Mai had no choice but to acquiesce. She was not paying the tuition. She had no control over her own life. So for a year, the raven haired girl lounged about, reading books that she snuck out of her parents' library or purchased cheap from vendors in Capitol City. Mai threw her blades in her room and in the garden. She walked and she walked some more. She moped and she thought about Zuko. She stagnated like still water in a pond, became sluggish and slow, little life flowing through her.

It was almost a relief to begin classes at the academy. If nothing else, it would provide a different kind of boredom. She was a good student, not because she studied hard but because she absorbed the information and remembered it all. She never gave much of it any real thought. None of it seemed to apply to her life anyway, so what was the point?

Azula threw herself into her studies, making certain that she was top of the class in everything. And no one dared provide any real competition for her. Some of the other girls were just as bright, more talented in some things, but held back, terrified of the princess's wrath.

So, two years passed and now graduation was upon her. Mai stood on the small podium, dressed in her school uniform, hair perfect, face perfect, and observed the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles who beamed with pride.

Her mother had been in a tizzy all day, excited by the prospect of that certificate with Mai's name on it. She could boast about Mai's accomplishment to her lady friends. Her daughter was cultured and educated now, a fine catch for any high born young man.

I wish Uncle Katashi was here.

He couldn't make the ceremony but had sent Mai a gift, a set of blades, gleaming, lovely things, forged by an expert, perfect. And Mai loved him for the gesture, for his acknowledgment of her true self. His sister, Mai's mother, disapproved, naturally, but allowed Mai to keep them. Family harmony had its own value.

He understands me. He isn't trying to sell me off to the highest bidder. He wants me to be happy.

Staring out at the crowd, Mai realized that she wasn't. And no amount of polite applause, no amount of certificates would change that. Her life loomed, an endless series of lonely, dull days.

Maybe I'll join the military. They can't stop me.

But she didn't want that either. Mai wasn't sure what she wanted. But she was certain about whom.

~~~~0000~~~~