4 - Pride

Zuko had thought that figuring out honor had been hard, but it had nothing on law.

Honor, at least, was something you could carry in your own heart, or at least in one of the little valves that still had space. That meant that if you didn't like someone else's honor, you could just make your own and save on the delivery fee. This, admittedly, could result in a little trouble, like the time Fire Lord Sozin had decided that honor meant people doing everything he said even if he said to go to another country and commit genocide. What was troubling was the number of people who had taken that into their hearts, whether or not they had any spare room, but Zuko was working on the problem and perhaps maybe might make some headway on it before he died.

But the idea also meant that if society's honor said, just to name a random example, that he wasn't allowed to marry Mai, then he could stand against all of society to say, "Nuh-uh!" and marry her anyway, because he defined his own honor and it said that marrying Mai was the right thing to do. It wasn't even all about his own wants; he thought that it would be good for her to be a leader for the Fire Nation, and didn't plan on limiting her to making and/or raising heirs, so honor could carry the day all around on that one. But that wasn't an option with law. In fact, carrying around your own law in your heart was explicitly illegal under current law, which just went to show that the people mucking about with honor all these years had been chumps, and it was the lawyers who were the really clever ones.

Zuko was painfully aware that he was one of those chumps. In fact, he was currently whining to his girlfriend about it.

"This is all my fault," he moaned as a curtained palanquin bore them both down the zig-zagging path to Lower Harbor City. "I should have done more. Maybe I could have recruited more lawyers; the army doesn't need a recruitment budget, anymore. Or I could have thrown out all the old laws and made my own when I was crowned. How long could that have taken? But I probably should have just married you as soon as we were both of age."

Mai looked up from the book of laws she had been reading and reached out to caress his cheek. "Zuko, that last one is a stupid idea and you know it. Also maybe the two before it."

The interruption to his whining annoyed him, so he pouted at her in a way that he knew usually got her to kiss him. "What, marrying me is a stupid idea?"

"No." She leaned over so that their noses were almost touching and smiled. "Us getting married when we were younger is the part where it gets stupid. Do you think either of us were ready make a marriage work, not to mention while also almost getting the Fire Nation back into a war (multiple times, I think) over trying to undo the damage of the last one?"

He had to admit that he's not sure how he would have fit all that into his schedule back then, what with the insurrections, the almost-wars, and his deliberately avoiding Mai as much as possible so that she couldn't hate him for all the mistakes he had been making. The nice thing about her, though, is that she didn't force him actually admit those kinds of things out loud. Instead, he remained silent and rested his head against hers.

It was a nice moment that wasn't completely ruined when one of the palanquin-bearers slipped a step and jostled them. The servant's awkward whisper of, "Sorry," finished the job, though.

Zuko settled back into his regal 'Fire Lord pose' while Mai bit into a new sizzle roll from her bag (they'd visited her favorite eatery on the way back from the magistrate's office) and drooped over her book. "I should have at least been able to guess that my subjects would try to turn my own dedication to law against me, though."

"Hmm, maybe," Mai said as soon as she swallowed, without looking up. "On the other hand, trying to predict all the various ways that your enemies would try to attack you is a pretty big job. There's lots of ways to mess with people, and you're already employing multiple full-time staffs just to deal with the ones that have been tried so far. When that many people dislike you, it's effectively impossible to keep up."

Zuko bit back a groan. "Thanks. I never get tired of hearing about how many people hate me."

Mai sighed and looked up from her book. She reached out to him again, but this time, it was to touch the center of his chest. "Then there are the people who love you. Because you figured out what the right thing to do was when you could have prospered doing the opposite. You turned enemies into family. You showed the right path to people who didn't realize - or didn't want to realize - that we were wrong. Like me. You chose to accept the hate of the people who wouldn't let go of what's wrong. If I lied and said everyone loves you now, I'd be diminishing your accomplishments. You should be proud of how many enemies you have."

He forced a laugh out. "So it's good that people hate me?"

"Well, when they're jerks, yeah." She bit into another sizzle roll and the offered him the other half.

He bit it without bothering to take it from her hand. When she worded the problem like that, it didn't sound so bad. "Sorry, I'll stop whining about it."

"Oh, no, keep going." She leaned over and planted a kiss right on his lips. "That's part of our whole little thing, isn't? One of us whines to our heart's content, the other acknowledges our despair and showers us in compliments, and then we feel better?"

Zuko felt a grin growing on his face. "It's definitely improved from the days when we just whined and maybe said that we don't hate each other."

"True, we are getting better at the whole 'positivity' thing." Mai shuddered. "But if I start wearing orange or pink or something that Ty Lee says looks good, I'm immediately divorcing you. Assuming we get married." She frowned. "Can a Fire Lady divorce a Fire Lord? Or is that a crime, too?" She turned back to her book and began flipping through pages.

His whining as thoroughly defeated as Admiral Zhao in an Agni Kai with a teenager (ha!), Zuko got his mind back to the problem at hand. "So now that we're alone, what's your plan for dealing with those accusations against you?"

"Simple. We identify Saikit's stupid clients, and then we intimidate them into falling in line and kill those who won't comply." She pointed to something on her current page and nodded. "A Fire Lady can divorce a Fire Lord against his will by either defeating him in an Agni Kai or killing a dragon after making the declaration of separation. Well, I guess I'm stuck with you, then. Or will be, assuming we pull this off."

Zuko blinked. "Wait, what?"

Mai shrugged. "Well, I'm not a Firebender, and weapons aren't allowed in an Agni Kai, so that's out. And even Aang sounds intimidated by those dragons you guys found, so I'm not going to go up against them just to get away from you."

"No, the other part. About establishing a tyranny of terror so that we can get married."

"Oh, that." Mai winked at him. "I'm only joking. Mostly. But I'm serious about identifying Saikit's clients. We don't have to be your father about it, but maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement to keep them from harassing us until we're too old to enjoy being married."

Zuko was frightened at how that sounded completely reasonable. "So what's the part you're leaving out? That you couldn't say in front of the lawyers?"

"Well, the easiest way to do it must be for someone to break into Saikit's offices or house and steal the information." She looked straight at him and did that cute thing where she didn't quite smile but definitely conveyed her self-satisfaction with her eyes.

Zuko's first instinct was to make a sound of frustration, point at her, order her to do no such thing, and then whine for an hour about what a good idea that was not. But that was the kind of disrespect that had broken them up at least once already, and he refused to lose her again, even if she was showing a disturbing criminal tendency these last few days. So instead he let go of his pride, took a deep breath, and thought of how Uncle would respond to Zuko's own more boneheaded decisions back during his exile. Then he dismissed offering Mai tea and thought about what Uncle would after that.

"Mai, I think there has to be a better path than trespassing and espionage."

She stared at him without saying anything. At first he thought it was an attempt at intimidation, but there was no prickliness to her, no anger. She was just staring. He wondered for a moment if he had something on his face (other than the obvious) or he had transformed into a dragon or something.

Then the palanquin came to a stop and one of the servants said, "We're here."

Zuko peeked through the curtain to find them in front of the florist shop where Mai lived and worked with her aunt. A somewhat familiar looking girl was in the process of scrubbing the front under the supervision of one of the local Home Guard.

"Oops, this is my stop," Mai said, sliding through the curtains and hopping off the palanquin before it could be set down. "I'll see you tomorrow, but later. I have some business to take care of, first."

"Mai! Please!" He crawled to the edge of the palanquin, wanting to reach to grab for her, but he held himself back and took the risk of trusting his own words. "I- I want to do this right! To show everyone that the law matters to me. If I break it whenever it inconveniences me, then I'm no better than my father. I need to win the trust of my people, not keep them in fear of me."

Mai looked up at him, eyes hooded in the shadows of dusk. "Even if it means I can't be anything more to you than Prime Concubine?"

Zuko decided that it was finally time to grab her, but in a nice way. He motioned for the servants to lower the palanquin, got off, adjusted his robes, took Mai's hands in his own, and gazed soulfully into the eyes he couldn't quite make out in the odd lighting. "If I break my promises to my people, how can I be sure I'll keep my promises to you? Besides, you know you that whatever happens you'll always be my Fire Land and Prime Concubine in my heart."

Mai stared at him for a long time. Long enough that Zuko was starting to wonder if she was attempting another delaying tactic, but they were already at her house and she didn't need to the cover of full darkness to escape from him if she wanted. Maybe she had hired the Kyoshi Warriors to stage and ambush?

Then she sniffled, and took a hand out of his grasp to rub at the shadowy areas where her eyes were. "Let's go," she said in a thick voice. "You might as well come inside so we can figure out a compromise."

Now Zuko wanted to cry, too. But he held it together long enough to get inside, although he had no idea why the cleaning girl under guard applauded as he and Mai walked past her.

Zuko accepted his fate with what he felt was great strength and stoicism. He had invoked the wisdom of his beloved uncle in dealing with Mai, and now he was being handed tea. He had never been quite sure what karma was, but now he felt like he was experiencing it in some nefarious way.

"Thank you," he said through not-quite gritted teeth to Mai's Aunt Mura. "You're too kind." He took a polite sip to show that he wasn't afraid of being poisoned, which he wasn't, but it was a thing a lot of people thought Fire Lords worried about. The tea turned out to be quite good, even if did turn out ot be poison, full of interesting flavors that blended together.

"Oh, it's always my great honor to host Mai's boyfriend. That you're the Fire Lord isn't bad, either." She turned to go, but then looked back at him. "Also, dear, you don't have to worry about those frightful fangirl mobs while you're here. I straightened them out about throwing cabbages around, and I made sure the Home Guard knows that the money I illictly pay them for protection includes salad assault and lovesick groupies."

"Um, thank you?"

"You're quite welcome. Now don't do anything too scandalous to my niece. I hear she's already in enough legal trouble."

As usual, Zuko didn't know how to deal with old people humor, so he elected to almost smile and otherwise ignore it. As soon as Mura was gone, he put his focus on preventing his girlfriend from becoming a career criminal.

They were in her bedroom, which propriety said was forbidden, but - much like honor - propriety which people couldn't see was something that could only be carried in the heart. Back when they were teenagers, they'd always been supervised by servants or guards or his little homocidal sister. After he became Fire Lord, that was handled mostly by the Crimson Guard, and then when the Kyoshi Warriors came in to keep him from getting assassinated, they took it upon themselves to protect his virtue from Mai's dangerous company. Somewhere in the transition back to local guard talent, though, Zuko had arranged so he didn't need to be accompanied everywhere unless there was an active threat of assassination.

Thankfully, the odds of Mai wanting to stab him were usually minimal.

Right now, she was sprawled across from him on a divan which, now that he looked at it, seemed familiar. "Is that from your old room? In the house in the Caldera?"

"Yes, actually." She looked at her own teacup, sitting on a table beside her, like an unwanted interloper. "When debtors came to haul everything away, after my father squandered everything we had on his little rebellion against you, I managed to grab this and drag it back here to Aunt Mura's. I deserve at least something nice not counting my many quality weapons, and my butt was already used to it."

Zuko assumed she didn't actually drag it all the way down to Lower Harbor City, but decided that he didn't need to know for certain. "Speaking of your father's- troubles, I think it's better if I be the one to focus on clearing your name with the legal team. Since the crime was theoretically committed against my rule, I'd be best suited for it. You can focus on Saikit and his clients."

"Which, to be clear," she drawled, "does not involve committing any crimes." She sighed. "I'm not sure how I'll do it, but if you're going to be all sweet and eloquent about it, I suppose I can try."

Zuko allowed himself a sigh of relief. "Thank you. I don't think we can afford you getting arrested anymore."

"Yes, I'm such a wild woman. Rawr." She sniffed at her tea, made a face, and apparently decided that she and it were not friends. "Notice how well I'm choosing to take your comment. On a related subject, how did that stupid incident with the guard get around so quickly that a lawyer shows up to our hearing-"

"The magistrate said it wasn't a hearing," Zuko put in helpfully, "it was an arbitration."

"-rawr. Anyway, it got around so quickly that the paperwork was ready to be submitted and I hadn't even gotten around to telling Auntie Mura about it yet." She shifted so that she was kneeling on the divan, leaning towards Zuko. "And when I confessed about covering for my father, the only other people in the room were Ty Lee, Suki, Aang, General Mak, and that boy I was dating at the time."

Zuok leaped to his feet. This explained everything! "Kei Lo wants revenge and betrayed us to my enemies, trying to keep us from getting married and bringing down my entire dynasty!"

Mai blinked. "Kei Lo, right, that was his name. Anyway, no, what you said was stupid. I'm assuming you don't think it was General Mak-"

Zuko did her the courtesy of considering it for a moment. "No. He's been loyal to me in everything, including very sensitive matters, and he actually likes you."

"He does?" Mai's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

Zuko shrugged. "He's responsible for palace security whenever Suki isn't stealing the job from him, and he likes that you don't try to kill me and always walk around armed. He considers you a bodyguard he doesn't have to authorize payment for."

Mai smiled. "That's nice. I should make an effort to stop being rude to him." She immediately lost her good cheer. "Or maybe not. He might not be a traitor, but if he's the big palace security boss, he's the one responsible. If it wasn't anyone whose name we know, then the only option is that it's someone in the palace whose name we don't know."

Zuko tried to find the flaw in that logic, but it was unassailable. "Okay. I'm not sure how that helps us, though."

"Simple, if we don't know the names, that means we're dealing with servants, guards, cooks, and any spies you think are working for you but really aren't. And the way people in the Caldera gossip, it didn't even need to involve specifically spying and selling the information to enemies. Someone told their friend who told their sister who told her boyfriend who owes money to a guy who once did a favor for the son of someone who used to own a mine in the colonies that you gave back to the Earth King. Mak obviously is a good judge of character since he likes me, but he never struck me as the kind of guy who ever did a favor in the middle of the night for someone shady." She picked up her tea, took and sip, and sighed. "Ugh, herbal. Why would she give me herbal? Anyway, while you're trying to figure out how to absolve me of my crimes, maybe you can have a little conversation with Mak about tightening the leaks in the palace walls."

Zuko nodded. "And you don't mean the drafts that make it uncomfortable in the winter."

"I do not. Although that would be good, too, if you have the time."

He wasn't sure if she was joking, so he gave a sound that could either be a grunt of acknowledgment or a very soft laugh. People often insulted his commitment to grunts, be he found them much more versatile than such slippery things as words. "It sounds like we have a plan. It will keep us apart, but it will also bring us together."

"How poetic." Mai sprawled back across the divan and rested her chin on her folded hands. "Good luck, tomorrow."

"Thank you." He finished his tea and looked across the bedroom at the love of his life. "I should go."

She sighed. "You should. Even aside from the absurdity of the Fire Lord bunking above my Auntie's floral shop, the traffic up to the Caldera in the morning is terrible. You'd have to leave now if you wanted to get to work before lunch."

They stood up together, and Mai walked him down to the back door, where his servants and palanquin were waiting. Zuko got an idea, one that had to be good because he estimated only a fifty-percent chance he get yelled by someone over it, and paused on the doorstep. "I might not be able to be with you tomorrow, but I can at least send you something to help, I think."

She leaned against the doorway. "What's that?"

He decided to make like Aang and play this 'smooth.' Every man should be able to charm his girlfriend on purpose every so often, and he decided that the evening had been pleasant enough to make the attempt. He started walking towards his palanquin, but paused to turn back with a smile and say, "You'll see."

As he continued his escape, Mai called out, "Ooh, being mysterious? Well, whatever it is, it better not be wearing a blue demon mask!"

Zuko laughed as his palanquin rose and whisked him away. He had fond memories of that mask, but the time in which it could help him was long over.

Then he remembered that the Blue Spirit was still technically a wanted criminal, and wound up reading Mai's book of laws all the way back up to the Caldera to make sure it wouldn't stop him from getting married. The good news was that apparently, no one cared if the Fire Lord committed a crime.

The bad news was that no one, apparently, cared if the Fire Lord committed a crime. Just the women they loved.

TO BE CONTINUED