A/N: This one was written very quickly. I had an image of Mai alone in her room, in the quiet, thinking about Zuko. Hardly original, but hey, it's what I came up with. ;-)

Prompt #46: Silence

Her Place

Her mother's incessant prattling faded into the background as Mai walked up the stairs to her bedroom. She couldn't stand the sound of her mother's voice or maybe her disgust was all about the nonsense that the woman spouted. None of it made any kind of sense to Mai. Who cared what dress Mrs. Sato wore to the party? Who cared if the same Mrs. Sato's son was only three years older than Mai, tolerable looking and with solid prospects for the future. Seriously, sometimes Mai wanted to walk over to her mother and just give her a slap. If nothing else, it would shut her up for a moment. Whatever consequences her mother and father doled out would be worth it. That wasn't quite true. If they took away her knives, she might just go insane. They were all she had now, those and the fading memories of a prince she once thought that she would marry. Funny how her childhood crush, one she couldn't seem to shake and really didn't want to, fit perfectly with her mother's stupid plans for her life. Yes, it was ironic alright. Now that Zuko was gone, probably for good, all chances of her marrying into nobility, or into anything for that matter, were gone as well. She wouldn't consider another boy (Zuko was a young man now, really, sixteen years old) because none of them could ever possibly compare.

Once inside her room, Mai clicked the door shut and turned the lock. Silence; it enveloped her like a soft blanket, cradling her, soothing her nerves and aiding the retrieval of her recollections. Her room, her sanctuary, where there were no distractions, no people, just her books, her knives and her memories; it was her favorite spot in the house and Zuko had never seen it. How improper would that have been? Mai pressed slender fingers to her lips to stop a giggle from escaping. Her mother would most certainly have died from shock if she had found Zuko here.

It was sad really. There was nothing in this room that he had ever touched. She couldn't put her head on the pillow and know that his head had rested there too. Still, she imagined that he would like her room and he would like the silence as much as she did. Mai wondered, like she did every day, where he was and what he was doing. She wondered if he wondered about her, in his own quiet room, away from his uncle and the ship's crew, lulled by the sea's gentle rocking, eyes closed while he stretched out on some rough mat or crude mattress.

Mai lay down on her bed and allowed her eyes to drift shut. In the darkness and in the silence she saw him. Her hand reached out but there was nothing and no one there. One day there would be. That was the only thought she clung to. It was the thought that kept her going, allowed her to get up every morning. And on that day, the day that Zuko returned, she could say goodbye to silence.