"He... he said that?"
Katara was so focused on turning to the right page in her literature textbook, she didn't notice the slight jump in her brother's voice. But she couldn't keep that smile from leaving her face.
"Yeah! Can you believe it?" She found the chapter for East Asian Haikus and quickly searched in her favorite pen to make herself study notes. "Nurse Yugoda said he must've gotten really overwhelmed to fall into a dizzy spell like that... but Sokka, if you saw the way he was looking at me, he seemed so...peaceful."
As she glanced over at him, it almost amazed her that Sokka was barely looking down at his fried wolf-bat lunch, instead of chewing on it by the mouthful. Even during an intense studying session they always tried to plan once a week, Sokka never held back on an empty stomach. Katara could see the distraught look in his eyes, how they didn't seem to focus on anything except the patterns of text in his Materials & Mechanisms book.
"Hey, you alright?"
She poked harmlessly at his shoulder, trying to get his attention away from a book to look at solid, very similar blue eyes. It was something Katara had seemed to inherit from their mother, however much it bugged him most of the time.
Sokka just blinked as Katara's teasing finger went at his arm a few more times, but he didn't care. He just muttered a 'yeah, I'm good' without even moving to brush off his sister's pry.
"Okay, seriously," she rolled her eyes, now giving his shoulder a light punch. "You're worse than Zuko. Now what's the matter?"
Sokka sighed, "It's not something I want to get into right now, okay? I have enough stuff to worry about as it is."
Her eyes shifted, trying to study her brother's slowly-thinning eyes that refused to move away from the textbook. Usually, she would just forcefully move Sokka's chin, or poke him silly until he did something to face her... but for some reason... the girl's mind could not help but rest. All Katara could remember was the immense, frustrated look that a young boy had made to get through to the person he loved (loved?). She didn't want to be that overwhelming anymore. Especially to her brother.
"Sokka, don't worry so much," she attempted, in the careful voice she usually reserved for Zuko. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad. Try me."
The boy just glanced at his sister for a moment and grunted, feeling she should be the first to know about anything girl-related with him... whether he liked it or not.
Sokka mumbled his explanation out in one sentence, his voice falling into sad little cracks.
"YOU BROKE UP WITH SUKI?"
Katara didn't even feel her voice bellow so loudly, but the few heads that were sitting near their outdoor commons had immediately turned in reaction. The boy's skin almost changed into the color of rice milk as he raised a shaking hand to 'shush' Katara down, trying to ignore the little bits of whispering that had ensued in the crowd.
"That's not what I said!" He whispered to her, exasperated. "I said that she and I... aren't... together... anymore."
"What the hell did you do, Sokka?" she looked at her brother like the most insolent scumbag in the world, crossing her arms as she waited for an answer. "Please don't tell me it has anything to do with the Science Fair..."
"Could I say something?" the boy attempted meekly, backing away on the grass as he had one hand slightly clutching his textbook in defense.
What was it about girls, he thought, that they automatically took sides with each other, instead of their own blood?
"Go ahead," Katara replied with sarcastic bite, knowing full well how her brother took girls' feelings very lightly. It's why she sometimes imagined Suki as nothing less than a miracle that was brought down to him in second grade by the Spirits themselves.
Sokka took a breath and composed himself in front of his sister's critical eye. "I wasn't planning to break it off, I swear."
"You mean you thought about it?" Katara scoffed, shaking her head in dismay and keeping her arms very crossed. "Do you have any idea how sweet that girl has been to you? Ugh, I'm surprised you lasted this long... because you're impossible."
"Katara, stop it." Looking at his sister in the eyes was suddenly becoming too much for him, and they lingered elsewhere. The book he was holding up in defense had long been brought down to his lap. Sokka sighed, feeling a certain heaviness grow in his chest. "You... you're not the only one who hurts right now, okay?"
He had long regretted bringing up the subject, especially to the girl who took responsibility on everyone's individual emotions like it was her job. Sometimes, Sokka had trouble remembering he once had a little sister... a girl who used to hide his boy-scout gadgets just to see him scamper around the house like a maniac, and would then hug him for no reason at all.
Those days seemed long gone, now that Katara's eyes just studied his own reflective blue, like he was as lifeless as the stone steps they were sitting on.
"Yes, I'm impossible," Sokka had learned quite a few girlfriends ago that the first step to leveling with them was through sheer self-blame... but with his sister, he had to lay his full honesty on the table. "And she and I've had our share of problems, me doing all these extra projects and her leading the Kyoshi dance troupe... but that has nothing to do with the break-up, Katara."
The girl took a small breath, knowing through his voice that he was being sincere.
"What happened?" she studied his nervous gaze towards the ground, letting her voice soften.
"It's hard to explain."
"Sokka..."
This was becoming much more difficult, as Sokka felt little uncomfortable pebbles almost take life in his gut. His eyebrows furrowed from the emptyness he felt in his stomach, like it was suddenly getting larger.
"I mean, it's not that I don't care about Suki. I do. But it's just that... I've been thinking about this other girl, in the back of my head." He noticed Katara blink, but Sokka continued before she could put a word in. "Nothing's happened. They're just feelings... ideas... and sometimes, I can't help but see myself with her... imagining what that would be like."
Katara's arms were still crossed, but the wonderment in her mind almost couldn't merge these emotionally difficult words and the stupid, impossible brother she'd always known him to be. Her blue eyes began to glimmer, and she nervously tugged at her hair to think about what to say next. All that her mind could do was wander, to put herself in her brother's position and understand how it felt.
"That's terrible, right?" Sokka sighed again after a few seconds' pause. Of all the people to listen to his emotional rambling, it had to be the most judgmental person in the world. This was bound to end badly, he thought.
But her eyes closed, remembering something that had been told to her from a while back.
"No, Sokka... it's not."
"Huh?" he eyebrows rose, like his sister had just formed a third eye.
"I mean it's okay to fantasize, as long as it isn't hurting the person you're close to."
Katara looked over at him again fully with a small grin, hoping that his level of shock had dwindled in order to understand what she was saying.
"Remember how crazy I was about Jet last year? I forgot I was my own person. Haru even tried asking me out, once, but I was so focused on this... this one idea with Jet... I didn't see Haru in the picture. It was all because I kept going with my imagination, believing that Jet would someday feel the same way about me, even if I knew that would never happen."
Sokka still had his eyebrows raised, mostly from the sincere surprise that Katara had decided to share so much of her personal life to the sarcastic, obnoxious brother. Part of him thought she was mistaking him for someone else, and he humorously glanced over his shoulder, wondering if this was all part of a joke. But she smiled in remark and kept going.
"It took me forever to get over that guy, and Haru and I almost lost touch completely. But now... I'm lucky enough to have him as a friend. I think it's better that way, too."
Sokka was still lost for words. "How did you get so... wise?"
The girl laughed musically, punching her brother in the arm.
"Zuko and I visit Mr. Iroh for tea, sometimes." Katara tried to ignore that puzzled-yet-disgusted look on her brother's face. "Anyway... he said it's part of human nature to imagine what things would be like differently, but you shouldn't let those ideas overtake your reality. You might be missing out on some really great memories."
The boy took those words in, taking a breath before gearing his attention towards a little caterpillar-slug that was crawling up the wall they were sitting against. By the way Katara was comfortingly looking over to him, Sokka knew that her judgmental side had taken a break. He was now able to speak to her full-heartedly, in the way siblings could always hold their secrets.
"It happened over a stupid letter... which basically twisted everything I'd thought about Princess Yue." Sokka watched Katara blink at the mention of her friend's name, but he didn't stop there. "Whoever wrote it made it sound like I wanted to break up with Suki over some cultural thing."
He rested him chin onto one of his hands, brooding over at Katara while she frowned at the imagination of such cruelty.
"It's not like the cultural thing wasn't there," Sokka then wondered out loud, "but the way it was written... Suki must've thought I didn't have any feelings for her at all. It was horrible."
"You'll have to talk to her," Katara advised assertively, "Let her know you didn't write that letter, and tell her how you feel. If those things about Yue are holding you back, you can't just hide them forever, Sokka."
Sokka's voice suddenly turned flustered all over again. "I have a feeling Azula is expecting me to do that. If I try to prove that cultural differences aren't a problem, that won't stop her from trying another scam like that again. It might put other people in danger."
Katara brought her eyes over to the ground, frowning and thinking as she brushed more of her hair. "How do you think she knew about all this?"
"I don't know..."
Sokka's mind lingered. He was trying to understand why it was suddenly so easy for the new kid to express his feelings to a girl he'd just known for months... but utterly impossible for a self-righteous fifteen-year-old to open his heart to someone he'd admirably teased since the moment she walked shyly into his second grade classroom... in her silly Kyoshi make-up and all.
Perhaps the best thing to do was to keep her safe, and out of whatever cruelty Azula was planning to do for his sister. He would have enough stress protecting one person, anyway.
"Isn't there a way we could show the whole school that cultural integration could be a positive thing?" the girl then brought up.
"You mean like the workshops?" Sokka finally got around to taking a few bites out of his lunch. "Aang's working with Teo on those gliders, and I know Toph is pumped about teaching girls how to tackle for Earthbending football... and aren't you and Zuko planning your own little bending classes before the election?"
"Right," Katara could hear the sarcasm at his mention of Zuko without even trying, "but I think we need something else. Something that could bring the entire school together and see what an amazing, diverse community of people we have... WAIT A MINUTE!"
Sokka almost choked in his food as Katara suddenly flinched with excitement. Quickly, she searched into her bag and took out the fairly worn-out script of OmaShu, taking the liberty skimming over some underlined pages and reading a few lines to herself quietly.
"Uh... Katara, what are you--"
"This might actually work," she cut him off, beaming with a smile as she glanced over to the confused, lunch-chewing Sokka. "The play's cast has a tonof diversity... and I know if I ask Haru, he could change some things around to show my mission to this campaign. And Zuko and I can advertise the show... and I can talk to Mr. Pakku to get the whole school invited...!"
The girl's voice just dragged off in mid-sentence, trying to contain her excitement as she quickly got up and started packing her things back into her bag.
"Wait! What about the study session?" Sokka raised a brow, watching his sister's long wavy hair flail around as she kept stuffing her bag with papers and books.
It was like watching a small hurricane.
"Sorry, this can't wait," She smiled, and without a moment's warning, Katara planted a small kiss of habit onto her brother's head. Sokka grimaced in slight disgust, but blushing nevertheless in reaction. "I have to find Mr. Pakku before lunch is over. Good luck with Suki!"
He didn't even have time to say something back to her, as Katara went off in a frenzy to look for their math teacher across the outside common area. All Sokka could do was shake his head in disbelief, and bring his eyes back to the same textbook he was reading. As he tried to concentrate in the text, Sokka couldn't help but laugh a little... realizing how some things about his annoying little sister would always be the same.
"Brothers and Sisters of my East and West, I do not appear here as your enemy of the Earth, but as the Bridge between the hatred you have summoned, and the long-forgotten peace that still carries hope for revival."
On Ji closed her eyes up on the rooftop of Praying Mantis school... her favorite hideaway during the lunch hour... sitting in her usual meditative style as she tried to recite the last scene for OmaShu. Even though the calm breeze of the open sky passed along her hair, it wasn't as pleasant as the girl thought it would be. On Ji felt her eyebrows crease at the middle as she attempted to block out all other worries.
"Aw, you were so close!" Kuzon's casual voice came in from her side. "It's survival; not revival."
And the little airbender blushed in meditation, but also kicking herself on the inside. As much as she tried to concentrate on her lines, something in the back of her mind was aching... trying to convince her that she had more important things to do than memorizing someone else's role.
"Oh well," On Ji opened her eyes in a sigh, feeling ultimately useless as she sadly muttered those words. Kuzon just raised a brow at her, rolling up the script in his hand just in case the girl would try to get to it.
"Oh no you don't," Kuzon teased, seeing On Ji turn her head to him in surprise. "We still have a couple pages left before our beautiful city is created, Miss Oma."
On Ji just breathed, without even attempting to snatch the script like she usually did. Her eyes shifted to look out into the vast courtyards of the school below them, feeling that certain headache in her mind getting bigger.
"Hey, don't you wanna make it to the end?" Kuzon looked at her in a puzzling way, seeing as this was her favorite part of the story.
"I'm sorry, Kuzon," On Ji placed a hand to the side of her temples, trying to block out a certain worry from her mind. "My head just doesn't want to cooperate today."
The boy just shook his head towards his fellow understudy, immediately bringing a hand over to grab her closest arm... and tugging her back down to the ground. On Ji didn't even have time to yelp as Kuzon held her in an arm lock... and he tickled her neck teasingly, knowing how much she hated it.
"Kuzon, I'm alright!" the girl laughed like a child, trying to get out of his grasp without much attempt. Part of her was air-leaping up towards the open blue sky above them, and she wondered if Kuzon was feeling that way, too. But the tickling ended much sooner than she hoped, and On Ji carefully brought herself back into a comfortable sitting state.
"What's bugging you, 'Ji?" Kuzon asked simply, looking out further into school grounds, where the entrance to the forest could be seen. "You've been meditating a lot more often than usual."
On Ji blushed in reaction, feeling like it was so much easier to talk to Kuzon, now that it seemed comfortable being there without Aang or Haru in the picture.
Perhaps it was a mistake not telling Aang immediately about the conversation with Mr. Mechanist, or about the possible motive Azula might have behind hiring Mr. Combustion Man for the job. She'd learned about the boy's sudden dizzy spell in Nurse Yugoda's office... probably due to the stress her friend was going through... learning so many intense elements at a short amount of time. On Ji didn't want to burden the boy with more worries (at least with one she didn't fully understand yet), but she'd managed to pay Aang a visit in the Nurse's quarters anyway... where they talked about reuniting the small group of airbenders next week for a Listening workshop. It was something they were both looking forward to, as it would probably make their airbending community stronger.
But still... it boggled the little girl's mind how the first person she'd found herself running to that day was Kuzon. As much as she tried to explain to her fellow understudy what she thought, it wasn't the same thing as it would be with another airbender. The worst part was she had no idea why Azula would volunteer to help Mr. Mechanist... or who she would be trying to hurt in the process.
And so she breathed, looking at Kuzon with her dark brown eyes, tightening her stomach to explain once again what her mind was aching about. She adored the boy so much, and in spite of the fact that they might never kiss onstage together... she could always have those rehearsals to keep her smiling and blushing.
He found her, sitting near the in-ground fountain of the school's courtyard during lunch period... exactly where the note said she would be.
Of course, it cost him a Saturday detention just to read the note... since Mr. Pakku caught the boy looking across Mai's shoulder as she wrote it to him on her sketchbook, instead of paying attention to the Geometry equations on the chalkboard. It didn't matter, anyway... because all that Jet was thinking of was seeing the pretty eyes of the girl in front of him again. Willingly.
The entire weekend had passed like a mundane holiday, not speaking a word to one another since the moment that Mai quietly left the White Lotus for home in her carriage. It wasn't to say that the Chicken & Dumplings night was a huge flop at the orphanage - the children raved about the finely-cut vegetables and meat, like it was food intended for the Spirits.
Much to their dismay, it was the familiar carriage rolling to the White Lotus's entrance that had cut Mai's experimental evening very short... escorted by none other than Governor Yazaki himself. Her father. While some of the children had gaped and awed at the appearance of the man who was the sole surveyor of their town, Jet's mouth stayed sadly closed. All that he could remember from Mai's sudden goodbye was a broken smile... a long, skeptical look from the man who followed her... and a faint look in her eyes that said 'I need some time to think'.
Of what, Jet couldn't even imagine, but one thing was certain. She had never said 'no.'
He approached her casually in the courtyard, and Mai was taking her sweet time, sketching the vast detail of the gong tower above them, majestically put on top of mossy-green blocks that even after four dynasties of Fire Nation still remained in place. Jet almost snickered at her relaxed, slouching sitting pose, since it was quite strange for a girl who usually craved to be straight and serious while at work.
"So the final tall was three food spills, two lemon juice cuts, one tray of overcooked dumplings... and zero complaints," Jet informed humourously as he set down his book back next to the pale girl with the sketchbook. His heart jumped as her copper eyes moved to finally acknowledge him. "Well, okay, one complaint from Sneers, but that kid's a real picky eater. He doesn't count."
Mai grinned in response, her thin eyes still looking as opaque as ever. Much to Jet's surprise, she made a softer version of that glorious sound as she set her sketchbook aside.
"How do you deal with little monsters like that all the time?" she moved her sitting position a little closer to Jet with her hands, facing him.
"It's not so bad," the boy's said simply, "my brother's kinda the ring-leader - always looking for new ways into guilt-tripping me. But I just beat him up when he does that."
Mai just shook her head in disbelief, and her face remained stoic as she began to speak. "I have a brother, too, and he annoys the hell out of my mother."
The boy couldn't help but grin as he gazed at her. Finally, he thought, something we have in common. "How old is he? What's his name?"
"Tom-Tom," Mai replied mostly to herself, and Jet noticed how her eyes weakly thinned themselves more into thought. "He's... oh, I don't know... almost two, I guess. I don't really care much for him."
"Don't say that," Jet heard himself say, and it made the girl wince over to him.
"What?" she questioned, curiously.
"You might regret it at some point." Jet's face was slowly turning into a serious frown, speaking to Mai as if these were his last few words on Earth. "Trust me. One day, you might wake up and realize he's the only family you got."
The girl just stared at him, puzzled by the intensity of his statement and finding ease by the sheer green color of the grass she gazed on.
"I don't see my family that way, Jet," she remarked in her husky voice.
"Fair enough," Jet looked down at the grass as well, starting to pick at the small blades to find the best thing to say next. "But it's not like your brother's done anything wrong, right?"
Mai sighed, refusing to look at those chocolate brown eyes again... afraid they would take her back to those moments after the Vice Principal's meeting.
"What's your sad, little story?" She wasn't intending to sound cruel, but it came out as a habit of her sarcasm to bring up a personal question like that. Jet managed to turn his eyes towards her, not feeling at all offended by the tone of her voice, and hoping she could face him again.
"My parents died, Mai."
Even in those few words, it was like retelling a folktale he heard vaguely from long ago. Sometimes he believed it was better that way... since remembering his parents' deaths had once made it impossible for him to sleep at night. He took a small breath to keep talking, noticing how the girl met his eyes nervously. In spite of how she must've assumed something along those lines... living in an orphanage and all... Mai did not blink once for his attention.
"But I was that stupid kid who thought he was better than staying around and keeping his family close." Jet started tossing a few tiny bits of stone gravel into the fountain behind them, letting his mind search for words. "I thought I was clever, leaving him in the White Lotus so I could run off and be a free man. God, I wasn't even ten years old... can you believe it?"
It felt strange, as he couldn't remember the last time he had spoken so personally to a girl. It was almost captivating to see Mai in front of him, listening with all of her good intentions... and Jet's voice became much more casual. Like a great amount of weight had fallen from his shoulders.
"And it's funny, too, because I wandered off into so many places, but no matter what kind of trouble I got into... or what pretty girl I met along the way..." Jet lingered to see Mai's reaction, watching her purse her lips humorously. "...I couldn't stop thinking about my little brother and how I left him. So I came back, because I felt like I owed it to him."
"Did he recognize you?" Mai asked with her husky voice slightly broken.
Jet laughed. "I came back as a hero! He was five years old, and thought I was the coolest thing to show up at the White Lotus."
"So you're still around to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid?"
"Yeah... plus it wouldn't hurt to compete for the school dance competitions." Jet grinned, still looking over to Mai's uncertainty in her eyes. "What about you? Who keeps you going?"
"Myself."
Jet just blinked, clearly expecting more from the girl who looked towards the grass with so much intensity in her eyes. Give her time, he thought, she'll open up. She just needs to breathe.
"At least that's how I can remember it, when all I did was draw," Mai tilted her head over to her sketchbook lying on the grass, placing a hand on it like it had a heartbeat. "When my parents sent me to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, things got more complicated. It was all for their own selfish reasons, and I still don't know how they got to me... but they did. They told me to stay quiet and behave like a lady. I felt punished, like I wasn't supposed to say or feel anything. So I stopped caring."
"Mai, shut up."
"What?"
"See? You do care," Jet managed to say before her eyebrows arched. "I just think it's been a while since you let yourself feel for people. You've been using this too much."
Jet leaned over to pick up the sketchbook from the ground, taking the liberty of skimming through a few pages he hadn't noticed before. As he had already guessed, most of them were of dark ink, of young women with long flowing dresses overlooking a vast canyon. Alone.
"I prefer it, actually."
"And that's fine, because it's all brilliant... now that you're using cooler subject matter," he turned further into the pages to find the familiar drawings of the Kalmian swamp, drenched with so many colors of nature. "But don't let that shut you out of the world, Sharpy. I think we both know you cried a little when you thought I died."
"I did not cry."
"Suuure you did."
"Stop that!" she scoffed, but looking at him as she did when he'd asked her to dance. Jet shook his head teasingly, giving them a minute to compose themselves.
As they sat there quietly, they both turned over to the fountain behind them, taking an interest in seeing their undulant reflections on the water.
"So... what's the verdict, Sharpy?" Jet tossed the rest of his pieces of gravel into the fountain, bringing all of his attention to the pale girl's copper eyes. "Should I start packing my things and check out other schools for tomorrow?"
Mai grinned, noticing the boy's hand move as it gracefully linger from the ledge of the fountain to touch the water. She didn't even see the small splatter of droplets coming... and her grin became a sudden, almost too-defensive flinch as she felt those bits of cold water hit her cheeks.
Her hands quickly flew in front to grab Jet's arm, preventing any second attempt from spraying her again. Playfully, he struggled to get out of her grip, but with Mai's keen blocking strategy it all seemed useless. He surrendered, frowning but laughing softly to her face.
"The dinner wasn't what I expected," Mai finally said, composing herself to him, "But I think it was... fun."
Jet's grin widened, and he leaned an ear closer to her. "Can you say that again, please?"
"It was fun, Jet," she reiterated with a roll of her eyes, wiping the tiny presence of water from her cheeks. "I had fun."
The boy breathed, feeling his blood rush to his throat as Mai declared... perhaps in her own unique choice of words... that she trusted him. He carefully found the hand that helping her sit up, and managed to brush his fingers casually over her own like piano keys.
"Does this mean we can keep talking, without you wanting to kill me?"
Although she looked down at Jet's hand and slowly wrapped her fingers around it, Mai's eyes couldn't face the boy's immediately. As she brought her head up to overlook the courtyard in sincere thought, she sighed.
"Jet, please." Mai involuntarily let her bangs overshadow the dark copper in her eyes then, feeling the harsh husky voice leave her throat. "I'm... I'm not right for you."
"Mai--"
"People are staring at us." It was suddenly then that her whispering voice acknowledged the few other students lounging in the courtyard, the occasional sets of eyes moving towards the pair sitting near the fountain. "They think this is a joke."
"To hell with that," Jet whispered to her in an edgy voice.
"It was bad enough seeing my father at the White Lotus." Mai's eyes began to glisten as her husky voice whispered. "He acted like he was rescuing me from some circus I didn't belong--"
"Sharpy, just tell me what you think. That's all I need." Jet kept his eyes on her, eliminating the dozens of eyes that seemed to be staring like leopard-hawks as he moved himself closer.
The breeze was picking up, and as Mai fully turned her eyes to him, a few stray strands of her hair brushed against the boy's cheeks, making him grin involuntarily.
"I think you're brave, or just a complete nutcase for doing this," she looked at his calm face and felt her cheeks warm up. "But... I'm grateful."
Jet didn't say a word, but slowly caught some of the flowing strands with his fingers, and Mai timidly shifted her eyes to the ground, finally realizing just how close his chocolate brown eyes were. She was already recognizing the scent of pine as the breeze passed through his hair, and a dozen images were slowly recapturing themselves in her mind. Most of them dealing with an unnecessary chase in the woods.
And Jet gazed at her, his face practically moving closer by instinct, and he daringly let his nose touch hers gently for what seemed forever. Mai's heartbeats quickened, her mind debating whether to move closer or further away from the boy's touch.
"Smile for me?" he whispered to her like a trembling prayer, his heart racing inside.
Jet's eyes closed, while Mai kept hers very open and awake... even as he brushed his nose over to her cheek, bringing his lips with so much gentleness and grace to the very corner of her mouth. And the result was instantaneous. The thin, firm lips of hers softened, and Mai could feel the warmth of the boy's breath against her own skin. She eventually grinned, and Jet felt it at the same corner he had so courageously touched.
That was when Mai closed her eyes as well, carefully bringing her lips over for a real kiss. One that Jet had foolishly dreamt about for so long, and now foolishly embraced with every fiber of his being.
It wasn't long before the loud clanging of the school gong would flinch them back into reality, almost inches from falling towards the fountain. Mai regained herself in a laugh, while Jet just smiled at her, nervously and mesmerized. They were so still, in spite of how the people around them seemed to move faster and faster from each sound of the gong.
"We'll talk later, okay?" Her husky voice said, so overwhelmed yet soothing that Jet could still feel the warmth of her lips.
"Absolutely," Jet managed, kissing her lightly on the cheek for a respectful goodbye.
As Mai helped herself up from the ground to take her leave, the Earth-dweller suddenly remembered his ridiculous detention... and he smiled to the air, thinking it had all been worthwhile.
And what they had both failed to notice was the young, radiantly-dressed princess of the Fire Nation who had strolled by in the courtyard with some speech papers, stopping almost dead in her tracks as she watched Mai exit the courtyard with such a smile on her pale face. Azula frowned momentarily, her insides twisting up with rage as she realized that her plan to take Mai back had ultimately failed.
Of course, she knew Mai would bear witness against the brutal airbenders' ceremony, with all of that effort that pale girl made in blocking the princess's attacks in the woods. So Azula did the only unbearable thing she could imagine; she chose to humiliate Mai by telling Vice Principal Zhao (in exaggeration, of course) the best-kept secret of this stoic, lethal-looking girl. Azula knew how much it would break her... hearing Zhao talk about her self-inflicting use for knives... and the princess expected Mai to confront her about it.
Azula even had her explanation planned out, saying how she was so heart-broken by the way Mai had betrayed her trust, that a fit of anger led her to say those things to Zhao. She imagined her devastated by that gossip that would spread like wild-fire... begging for Azula to trust her again... to help end those rumors so she could hide from the world once more.
It's what Azula was counting on, to regain such a valuable comrade for this campaign.
But the woman bit her lip to keep herself steady, watching like a deadly moose-lion as that Earth-dweller casually got up from the ground.
She knew she had lost Mai forever. And somebody was going to pay.
A/N - Now I know what you're thinking: Where is Aang, and what happened after he woke up from that nap in Katara's arms? Haha... patience, young grasshopper... all in good time. Because of the title of this chapter, I was almost gonna put a scene between Zuko and Azula, but it all crumbled down to unnecessary dialogue. And I'll say it again. I love Jet & Mai!!! --- MM