Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to phieillydinyia, a faithful reader and reviewer, and internet friend from the Kataang Discord who shares my deep appreciation for Mai. Check out her Avatar one-shot stories! Happy birthday girl!
After the group agreed that they wanted a new play about their adventures, Zuko wrote Higeki, his favorite living playwright, asking him to author the story. The illustrious dramatist came to the palace and took up written accounts from all of the Fire Lord's friends. Sokka had sheaves and sheaves of writing, and an entire book full of jokes. Zuko, Aang, and Katara each wrote their own versions; Toph dictated to one of the palace secretaries. The playwright then interviewed each of them, as well as Iroh, Mai, and Suki. He even visited Azula in the asylum to see if he could gain any insight into her motivation.
They had several heated round table discussions with the playwright and Zuko's press secretary about which parts of the story were most important, and which could be left out, indeed, which had to be left out in the interest of time and what the playwright called the unity of the story.
Since the relationship between the new Fire Lord and the Avatar had been chosen as the central focus of the play, many events that did not involve any interaction between the two leads were cut out of the story. Among these were their visits to Omashu, Haru's village, Hei Bai's forest, Jet's woodsy stronghold, the Great Divide, Makapu Village, Jeong Jeong's hideout on the river, the Northern Air Temple, General Fong's fortress, the Cave of the Two Lovers, Chin Village, the Fire Nation school, and Piandao's estate. Several of the teens breathed a sigh of relief when the incident with the pirates fell to the cutting floor. Sokka probably grumbled about these deletions the most, but grudgingly understood when they pointed out that the showtime would have to triple if they were to include every event he wanted to. "Save it for your memoir!" became the refrain they kept yelling at him.
The final outline included a lengthy prologue with all of the 'backstory' at the beginning. Aang's first meeting with Zuko in the South, as well as his visits to the Southern Air Temple, Kyoshi Island, and the fire sage temple were deemed important enough to present to the audience. His capture by Admiral Zhao and rescue by Zuko as the Blue Spirit, along with the battle for the North, were the highlights of Act One. Then the second act showed Zuko and Iroh's travels in the Earth Kingdom as refugees, Toph's enlistment, Azula's chase and the brief moment her brother and uncle had joined Team Avatar to fight her, and finally Zuko's choices to free Appa and then to join his sister in the Crystal Catacombs. The third act focused on Aang's awakening, the invasion and Zuko's simultaneous confrontation with his father, his finally joining the Avatar's group, and his trip with Aang to learn firebending from the dragons. Zuko was little worried that betraying the dragons' survival would send people off hunting them again, but then the playwright promised to present the scene in a fantastical way, making it almost a dream sequence, more metaphorical than real.
The press secretary had reservations about displaying certain incidents from near the end of the story, specifically Zuko's involvement in a prison break and an unprovoked attack on a retired war veteran. Zuko didn't like the idea of hiding what he'd done from his people, but agreed that the Fire Lord had to at least appear to uphold law and order. The whole story could come out later in a more nuanced format, like an authorized biography, the press secretary eased his boss's conscience for dishonesty. Since these incidents did not directly involve the Avatar, they were ripe for the cutting.
But if the Boiling Rock episode got cut, then Mai's heroic choice, the moment that was supposed to win her the support of the public, was lost as well. And Zuko could not let that happen.
"I thought half of the point of this show was to make people like her." he objected bluntly.
The press secretary seemed trapped. He had a plan to rehabilitate Mai's image so that she could be accepted and respected as Fire Lady one day. The first part of the plan, Mai hated. It involved making her into a "style icon." He promised her that if she "leaned into the princess thing," she'd become "the darling of the people," and then Zuko's fangirls and the matchmaking noble mothers would give them both some peace. The only problem was that Mai didn't want to spend hours every day picking outfits and getting her hair done. The press secretary then changed his tactic to "helping her develop her signature style," which mostly just meant buying slightly better-tailored versions of the clothing she already favored. He acted like this was a compromise, but Mai hadn't given an inch.
The second part of his plan depended on "selling Maiko" as he put it, making the entire kingdom buy in to the "epic romance" between the Fire Lord and his childhood sweetheart. The play was supposed to play a crucial role in that. If he couldn't make this romantic scene happen, Zuko and Mai would have to do an "intimate personal relationship profile," in the leading newspaper, and the couple dreaded that prospect.
When this problem was laid before the playwright, Higeki waved his pen and performed a small feat of theater magic. Azula's attack on the Western Air Temple was rewritten, so that Mai and Ty Lee accompanied the Fire Princess, and the knife-thrower stepped in to save her estranged boyfriend there instead of on the Boiling Rock. Her big line would become a political slogan for Zuko's supporters to chant against his detractors, the master playwright promised.
When it came time to cast the show, Katara insisted that a girl from the Water Tribe play her character, and Sokka chimed in with his support. The actors who seemed best for the role of Zuko all seemed to be older, as old as 25, while the ones who would play Aang and Katara had already been chosen, and they were both 14. The press secretary was pleased; he thought a wider age gap between the Fire Prince and the Avatar would make Zuko look more like a leader.
"Doesn't it make me look like a bully, though? Fighting a little kid?" Zuko wondered.
"Should have thought about that before you picked a fight with a twelve-year-old," Sokka shook his head.
"If so, we're also showing you getting bullied yourself, much worse." The playwright pointed out.
"And also I beat you every time," Aang reminded Zuko brightly, making him scowl. "So I wouldn't call that bullying. At best, attempted bullying."
The teens agreed, without discussing it explicitly, that it was a bonus that this casting decision also made it clear that Zuko would only see Katara as a younger sister, and solidified Mai as his only love interest. It didn't hurt that Mai's actress was also in her early twenties, and a well-known beauty.
Toph suggested keeping the big buff guy who had played her character in the Ember Island production, but then Katara told her how empowering it would be for children in the audience to see that the strongest member of Team Avatar was "just a little girl."
"And you know making you a giant man served propaganda purposes as well, right?" Zuko informed the earthbender. "It would have been too embarrassing to the Fire Nation to show a twelve-year-old girl thoroughly kicking our asses."
"All right, Sparky, you convinced me." Toph smirked, punching his shoulder. "Pick somebody just like me, tiny but mighty. The shorter, the better."
In preparation for the new play, Zuko had brought his guests to see a round of theater productions, so that they could assess the actors, directors, and special effects techniques, and make recommendations for their stage biography. But now that the show had been cast and was in rehearsals, the teenagers had lost interest in going to the theater, and had gotten a little burned out on opera and tragedy, if they were honest. When the last set of tickets was offered at lunch, everyone made excuses: Sokka and Suki would be training at Piandao's, Toph was still helping with the construction of the Earth Kingdom embassy building, and even theater-lover Zuko had a big meeting, and he insisted he needed Aang's support figuring out how to mediate a dispute between a couple of rival clans on a nearby island. But Katara had the night off from the hospital, and Mai wanted a break from the palace. They were the only ones with nothing to do, so they went to the show together.
Though the girls hadn't spent that much time together, they enjoyed the production more than they thought they would. It was a romantic story, sentimental but funny, about a couple of childhood friends who escaped arranged marriages by pretending to be engaged to each other, falling in love along the way. The final wedding scene was especially poignant, with stirring music, and, of course, a gorgeous dress. Mai wasn't particularly surprised when the curtain dropped, and she turned to her companion to see that Katara was crying. But it took only a moment for her to understand that these were not just normal, 'what a moving performance' tears; the girl was genuinely bawling, as if her heart had been ripped out.
The waterbender tried to explain her overreaction, but was barely coherent. "It's just…..those vows, hearing them pledge their eternal love, and dedicate their lives to each other, and the way he was looking into her eyes, surrounded by their families, and I know I'll never-" she cut herself off, covering her mouth with her hand to choke off her sobs.
Mai was completely at a loss for how to respond to Katara's outburst. They really didn't know each other that well. At least they had some privacy in the royal box, and could stay there as long as they liked. She had an urge to make a joke about "tearbending," but resisted it. She patted the girl's shoulder uncertainly, as her weeping subsided, awkwardly trying to offer comfort. "I'm sure you and Aang will get married someday. You're both really young. I mean, you're my age, but he's even younger, right?"
"Air Nomads don't get married." Katara informed her miserably.
"Oh." Mai looked taken aback by this information, and took a moment to recover. "But it's not like he has any family to object. I'm sure if you explained to him how important it is to you, he'd do it. And if that doesn't work, you could always give him an ultimatum. I guarantee he'd cave."
"I wouldn't want to force him into it. And I want to let him continue his people's traditions."
"No, you don't." Mai contradicted her flatly. Tough love was her style. "You want to want to. But you don't really want to lose this little dream you've always had, of a wedding, do you?"
"I'm willing to sacrifice it to be with him." She insisted stoutly, almost piously. "A wedding is just one day."
"Don't say that to the girl who's going to have to have a royal wedding. My wedding will take months to plan, and it will live forever in portraits."
It occurred to Katara that the Fire Lord's girlfriend might just be the perfect person to talk to about the troubles she'd kept buried inside for weeks or months. Her position was very similar to Katara's, as Zuko's was similar to Aang's. The young leaders both needed to have children, and they couldn't do that without their partners. "The wedding and the other traditions are only part of it. The real reason I'm not sure about marriage is because of the issue of children."
"Oh. I can see why that might be a problem." Mai leaned back in her seat, appreciating the dilemma. "If I didn't want to have any kids, I would have felt like I had to break up with Zuko, to let him find a girl who does. And if it weren't for Tom Tom, I might not have known that I actually do like kids. So you don't want to have children?"
"No, I do, but I can't have enough of them."
"What do you mean?"
"You only need to produce an heir and a spare, and Zuko will be thrilled. Maybe one would be enough, since there's baby Roku now. But Aang has to be the father of an entire nation." Katara pointed out. "Even if I spend the next thirty years of my life pregnant, I couldn't bear enough children to bring back the Air Nomads."
"You would do that? Spend 30 years pregnant? Is that even possible?" The horror on Mai's face was the most dramatic expression Katara had ever seen her display.
"It was kind of an exaggeration, but almost possible. At the clinic in Ba Sing Se I met an old woman who had 17 children. I don't think it's really healthy to have that many; she had some terrible back pain and had lost a foot of height. Eight to ten, with at least a year in between, that's what I've been thinking I'll aim for. I think that's about the most a woman can do without compromising her own health. But as a midwife, I've also seen how common miscarriages and infertility are."
"So what will you do?"
"I think that at some point Aang will have to sleep with other women."
"You'd be ok with that?"
"I'd have to be. The future of his people—and the balance of the world—are more important than my feelings."
"Wow. You're a better person than I am." Mai shook her head. "If Zuko ever tried to bring in a concubine, I'd cut him so he'd be useless to her, torch the palace, and leave with the entire family fortune."
Katara didn't judge Mai for that reaction at all, and wanted to make that clear. "I'm not better, I'm just reacting to different circumstances. I think I'd want to do the same thing if my partner cheated on me. If he broke a vow. Which is why I'd rather Aang and I stay unmarried. That way, when he…..has to do what he has to do, it will be easier for me to forgive him for it. Then it wouldn't be a betrayal. I guess it would be kind of like Nozomi and baby Roku." The thought of the sweet baby made her brighten a little, distracting her from her own pain.
"Do you really think Aang would do anything Ozai did, especially where family is concerned? I don't know him well, but even I can tell he loves you too much for that."
"We've never even said that to each other." She said miserably.
"Why in the world not?" Mai looked utterly baffled. "You obviously love him. And he's even more obvious."
"I don't know why. I guess I've been waiting for him to say it, and he just hasn't. Sometimes I wonder if it's an Air Nomad thing, if they liked relationships to be open and intangible, rather than tied down with words. If their spiritual connection was so strong, it substituted for the words that other people use for their feelings."
"It's hard when important things remain unspoken." Mai sympathized.
"You and Zuko don't say it?"
"No, we do. Or we have, anyway. I've probably only said it a couple of times. He says it….not every day, but more than once a week."
Katara frowned. That sounded kind of uneven. She hoped it didn't bother Zuko, but felt like she couldn't criticize, especially when she'd just admitted to her own much more serious relationship problems. "That sounds nice." She ventured tentatively.
"It is. But what's unspoken is my status here. We're living together, not married, not even engaged."
Katara started. Aang had told her something different, and maybe that meant Zuko and Mai had a misunderstanding. She imagined orchestrating a kind of game of pass-the-message where she tried to get Aang to relay to Zuko that his 'unspoken engagement' was just in his head, without letting him know that Aang had told her, and she'd talked to Mai. It was a stressful idea.
"Well, maybe we're kind of engaged to be engaged." Mai clarified. "Like one step out from it."
"What does that mean?" Katara asked, a little relieved. That sounded like something similar to what Aang had said about them.
"It means he promised to ask me someday, and I plan to hold him to it."
"You don't think he'd go back on it?"
"Not really." Mai shook her head wryly. "He's too honorable for that. But when I see these society ladies scheming to try to pair him with their daughters, and calling me all kinds of names behind my back, without even bothering to hide what they're saying-that's not easy. Of course, if Zuko hears them, it's worse. He's caused a scene a couple of times. If he's not careful, defending my honor is going to cost him allies he'll need someday."
"I can imagine that. I'm sure he'll follow through." Katara assured her.
"The hardest moments, and also the easiest moments, are in bed." Mai confided thoughtfully. "It's like we're so close that the fact that we're not official doesn't matter, and then other times it's like we're so close that not being official is maddening. Like how that moment of being on the edge is either the best or the worst feeling in the world? It's great if you're sure you're going to go over and be satisfied, but if it keeps happening, and you never do, never quite get there-"
Katara's eyes widened in self-recognition. Mai was discussing an experience Katara definitely didn't have-not physically, anyway. Metaphorically, though, the frustration and empty discontentment Mai was describing sounded all too familiar. "I know what you mean. It's torture."
"For real. But don't worry, Zuko figured it out. He was very determined." One corner of her mouth turned up in a self-satisfied smile. "It just took some time and communication. And it'll be the same for you guys. But right now, I can see how torn up you are-about both the wedding thing and the baby thing. You can't go on like this. You have to find a way to be ok with everything you just told me, or end it."
"Ending it is not an option." Katara said firmly. She was still certain that, as unbearable as the pain would be, she would rather share Aang than have none of him. Even though she felt wretched every time she brought out that little box of worries and poked around inside, she was sure that breaking up with Aang over these issues would be even worse. That would be like jumping into that box and allowing it to consume her entire life, and his as well.
"Then figure out what would make it bearable." Mai urged her. "What do you need from him? Ask for it."
She was quiet a moment, thinking, feeling. She wasn't sure that love would be enough, but she knew that without it they wouldn't have a chance. "I think I need to hear him say it."
"He will if you ask."
Katara recoiled. "I don't want to ask! That's so desperate. Needy." Such a thing would make her feel shamefully pathetic.
"Then just say it first, and he'll say it back. That's a confident, assertive move." Mai assured her.
"But is that good enough?" Katara wondered. "If he says it first, then I'll know he really meant it. If it's my idea, won't I always wonder if he just went along with me?"
"I don't think he's that kind of guy. He doesn't just go along with it when everyone else is chowing down on a steak. He got a lot of pressure from you all to kill Zuko's father, and he resisted that. He can stand up for himself when he wants to."
"That's true."
"And come on, you know how happy you'll be when you hear it. Him too. It won't matter who said it first."
"Yeah. That's true." Katara couldn't help smiling at the thought. "I can tell him. But when? How do you know when it's the right moment?"
Mai shrugged. "Anytime you're alone. In bed is good. Or, you could, I don't know, hire a band and start a parade. Shoot some fireworks. Make it a whole big event."
She giggled. "I like that idea."
Mai rolled her eyes. "Of course you do."
The more she thought about it, the more excited Katara got about planning to tell Aang exactly how much she loved him. It was a bit scary, but even more of a relief, and it just felt right. Not saying it was almost dishonest at that point, a lie by omission. And recently, with the talk they'd had in the fountain about where and how they would live, and especially because of the promises he'd made to her on the Jang Hui River, loving him seemed safer than ever. She finally felt ready to go out on a limb. Despite how long they had been dating without expressing their love in words, she believed as surely as anyone ever could that Aang would return her sentiment. He said every other thing possible, and made her completely happy and secure when they were together, as long as she didn't let herself brood on her fears for their future. The fact that he hadn't said it just seemed strange, like it didn't fit. There must be some reason. It would be interesting to finally find out what it was.
Picking a time and place was the easy part: there was an event coming up that would be the perfect setting. But then she thought to pair the words with a gift, something special to remind him always of how it had felt to hear her tell him what he meant to her for the first time. And that took her down a bit of a rabbit hole.
She searched the royal trophy room for Air Nomad artifacts, but almost all of the things that had been stolen from the Air Temples were religious in nature, not personal. When she talked to one of the scholars there, he said that the Air Nomads didn't typically exchange any romantic mementos that endured, sticking to perishables like flowers or food.
"Besides," he told her. "The Fire Nation soldiers only stole items that they saw the value in. Anything with precious metals or other valuable materials, or with exceptional craftsmanship. The love tokens of the Air Nomads were disposable, their value purely sentimental to their owners."
Katara had almost given up on the idea of a gift when she saw a small statue of an Avatar so ancient she didn't recognize him by name, an Earth Kingdom warrior of astonishing size. She asked the scholar if there were any items in the trophy room that had belonged to the Avatar. Only some weapons, armor, and clothing, he answered. Avatar Roku's possessions had been destroyed in the volcanic eruption that had ended his life. She thanked him and left to write a letter.
When Katara dropped her letter at the messenger hawks, she received one addressed to her from the South, reminding her of another tradition, one that made it even more urgent that she and her boyfriend should come to an understanding soon. She just hoped her letter would arrive in time. She knew she was cutting it close.
Author's Note: If Mai's hints about her relationship with Zuko intrigue you, check out my Maiko stories, A Contentious Reunion, Weathering the Storm, and Healing Invisible Scars. Go to An Archive of Our Own for the last two of those stories because they're explicit. I have the same author name there.
Next week, the moment you've been waiting for.