Prompt: Entanglement (May 7)

Rating: T

Warning: none

Word Count: 1099

Notes: Mai and Zuko, meeting again in a different Earth Kingdom, during a different war. If Ozai were more about political tactics than flash, if Zuko had turned his back on the Fire Nation after Zhao's assassination attempt, if seven years passed instead of three.

Entanglement

The door closes behind her half-drunk, giggling sisters-in-law, and Mai lets out the breath she'd been holding. They're nice enough girls—sweet, simpering, always with a smile and fluttery little wink and a delicate laugh. They remind her in a way of Ty Lee, which means they are best encountered separately, in short bursts of bubbly attention.

They mean well, and are so happy to call her sister now—Kaede and Umeko and and and—

Mai frowns, twisting the cherry blossom sprig from her hair. She'll have to ask the servants, or find a family tree somewhere in the library. The eldest is already married, ripe with her second child. Middle's being sold south, to placate some under-lord or minor officer. The third is yet a baby, all plump cheeks and bright smiles. She had been adorned in the lightest cloth of them all—her father's most precious possession now. He must choose his final alliance carefully.

The bed curtains, closed but untied, twitch slightly in the mirror's reflection, and Mai smirks.

"If you're going to watch, you ought to be a bit more discreet about it."

Never one to acknowledge defeat, Zuko doesn't move, voice drifting up from the darkness.

"What are you wearing?"

"My wedding clothes," Mai says. "The white cherry blossoms represent purity and innocence and my origins in the Fire Nation. The jade comb with ivory lotus represents wisdom, sincerity, and wealth. The pearls are a sign of wealth, purchased from my new father-in-law's son-in-law's southern coastal family. The jasmine, of course, is sexual passion and virility."

"What about the chopsticks?"

"In case I get hungry."

He's trying to be smooth and stealthy, but whatever his silly little costume is made of sticks to the silk—he drags along a blanket in standing.

"You look ridiculous," he says.

"You're one to talk. I just adored you in Love Amongst the Dragons this year. Though I'm glad to see the ponytail is gone. Can't imagine it fit well under that—what's it called? Skull cap?"

He glares at her from beneath a mop of tangled hair.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Mai says acidly. "Were you expecting pity?"

He launches across the room, pinning her against the vanity, fury in his sneer and sparking eyes, fire escaping with every sharp breath.

"Help, guards," Mai whispers mockingly against his lips, "the Blue Spirit's going to ravage me."

He punishes her with a bruising kiss, pulling the pins from her hair, crushing petals and violently throwing the comb to the floor. The pearls clatter down the wall, free of their string, and Mai grins against him, nipping Zuko's lower lip.

"That's more like it," she says, pushing back on his shoulders.

"What's the point of sleeves that cover your hands?" Zuko asks, rubbing a pinch of the fabric between his fingers.

"They make me look dainty and sweet. Plus it means I need a servant to feed me, so my husband has to be rich to keep me from starving."

"I don't like you in green."

"Then be useful, and help me take it off."

"You'll make a cuckold of your husband on your wedding night?"

"Cheng Fu is many things," Mai sighs, as Zuko unwinds the ribbon from her waist. "But jealous will never be one of them. He'd welcome your bastard into the house—save him the horrifying trouble of envisioning the stable boy's face in place of mine. Why do you think the bed was made for only one?"

He gets stuck on the obi, so she nudges him towards the bed, watching as he peels the black shirt from his skin, kicks aside his soft leather boots, and wiggles the trousers past his narrow hips. The body exposed is rigid with muscle, lean, marked with mending bruises and old scars. Mai steps out of the kimono and gently extracts the last few pins from her tangled hair.

Zuko sits on the edge of the bed, and they regard each other in silence for a moment, bare but unabashed. Mai trails a few pointed fingernails along her side, from her hip up to her breast.

"You've...grown," Zuko says hoarsely, gripping the bedsheets beneath him.

"In all the right ways, I hope."

She has lain with others and so has he, but still he is gentle with her, exploring every inch of her body with tongue and hands and lips. She has no need to stifle the moans and cries he draws from her—the house will be empty in blessing, as the revelers carry on somewhere distant, toasting the happy couple's fertility with warm wine.

It is odd to think of him as the little boy she once knew—the awkwardness, the shy blushing and nervous smiles are familiar, but these hands are calloused, this skin thatched with downy hair, these eyes dark, hollow and haunted. He coaxes her to completion and then follows, trembling, face buried against her neck, gasping for breath.

They share a pillow, facing each other, as his hand runs through her hair. They say nothing, and she falls asleep with his head tucked beneath her chin.

She rises first, a bit before dawn, sliding her feet to the floor and then resting. Zuko's hand reaches up from the bedclothes to caress her bare back, to twine through the curtain of her hair.

"I don't want you to stay here," he says quietly.

"I think your wants are immaterial. A transaction was made, and I intend to honor it."

Only her head turns, chin dipping to her shoulder.

"You don't know the damage I can do from where I am. Cheng Fu's father is quite old, with only one easily manipulated son. Imagine the chaos one could sow with so malleable a puppet. Money can only buy so much loyalty."

His lips follow the trail his hand blazed, up to her neck.

"This is only a stepping-stone. Ozai would use me against the king directly."

"Empires have fallen for less."

She does not move. Zuko curls up against her back, arms sliding around her middle.

"Come with me," he says, and the sound rumbles through his chest and into hers. "We'll set fire to this place, destroy them from the outside."

"We both work from the shadows. We both have the same goal. It's only in our methods we find difference."

She nods to the jade comb, to its ivory lotus blossom.

"A gift from your uncle. A congratulations. And a message."

She turns and kisses him.

"This isn't goodbye."

"It's not?"

His confusion is sweet, and deserves a little smile.

"I'll know how to find you," she says, "when I need you."