Thanks everyone who followed and favorites since the last chapter! I'm so glad people are still following this story/series. And I'd love to hear your thoughts as the story goes on.

This week we have Zuko's trust issues and table manners being addressed. All wrapped up in what ended up being a giant Maiko burrito (a phrase I just made up and hope never to use again) of a chapter, apparently Maiko happens when I have to get some character points into a sort of filler chapter and the two of them are in the same place *shrugs*.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter and have a great day!

Chapter 2: Out of the Ashes

Zuko woke slowly, them very quickly when he realized he was in an unfamiliar place. It was dim and tall and green. Some room in the palace, the earth king's palace, he recalled.

"Good morning."

He nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected voice and company. And became painfully aware of the deep bruises that peppered what felt like every inch of him. Letting out a groan, he stood up slowly, painfully, and stiffly.

"You're bleeding." Mai informed, in a tone that was almost concerned. His hand went to his side, low on his ribcage, it came away sticky with a thick ooze of mostly congealed blood mixed with a fresh bright red of an opened wound. It took a moment to recall the slice he had recovered from the waterbender. "I'll get someone."

"No its fine, I just need some bandages."

"Well if it's nothing, I think Azula was waiting for you to wake up."

"How long was I asleep?"

"Since almost noon yesterday. When was the last time you slept?"

"Umm… I got a few hours the night before I got here?" Mai sighed deeply with a roll of her eyes.

The door opened with a bang that certainly would have woken him if he wasn't already. "Are you awake yet?" Before he could respond her eyes had taken in the entire room. "Good. I was starting to think you'd fallen into a coma, which would be unfortunate I suppose, but so very fitting with your luck and tendency to be a burden. Anyway, I was thinking, Mai said you had the table manners of an untrained baboon-hog. We have you going home like that so you two will be going out to lunch." She informed them. "Oh by the way, we have a guest. Though I don't know if Father will thank you for finding him."

"You went and got Lu Ten?"

"And am regretting it more with every minute." She rolled her eyes. He wanted to ask what that meant but she went on moving back to the door. "Get cleaned up and ready for the day, Zuko; sunrise was hours ago, people will start thinking you can't bend either."

She left, Mai tailing behind her, and he was left in the room, with its coolness from thick earthen walls and limited light coming in from a high narrow window. There wasn't a side room and he found only a washbasin and jar of extra water on a stand separated form the rest of the room by a solid screen. This guest room didn't have a mirror, which was fine, he knew what he looked like when he felt this sore. Easing out of the shirt was a process in order not to disturb the gash on his ribs too much.

Starting with his arm, he flinched as pain flashed on his forearm when the damp cloth touched skin. Inspecting the area, he found a reddened patch of skin, a mild burn tender and irritated. He remembered the diverting orange flames that had brushed him as they tried to form a barrier and the brief flare of his sleeve burning, and he knew what it was from.

He'd cleaned down to his waist when he heard the door open and no sound after that except some light rustling of fabric, he drew his knife and waited behind the screen for the intruder. A figure moves just into view and he moved to strike, stopped by an arm raised to block his own forearm, the collision sent pain through his various bruises on the limb and caused the knife to tumble to the ground.

"Koh, Zuko." It was Mai, looking very annoyed.

"Did Azula send you to keep an eye on me?" She had been there when he woke and now she was returning, there had been no sign of anyone else.

"I was just bringing you clothes," she dropped the bundle of red and grey cloth onto the ground at her feet, "and bandages" the roll bounced off his chest.

"Sorry."

"Hurry, your cousin wants to see you." She stated without turning around as she walked toward the door.

"Why?"

She paused and turned to level him with a look that was somehow emotionlessly bored and passionately done. "Because he wants to make sure your actually still alive. Not everyone is out to get you. You need to chill, you need to trust someone, or the court is going to eat you alive." Then she left.

Clean and dressed he reentered the throneroom and stopped afew steps in, looking at the scorch marks covering the stone and having burnt through the long green rug in places. "What happened?"

"The dissolution of the Dai Li." Azula answered primly.

"You didn't…"

"Only sent a message and made sure they can't do anything for awhile." She looked satisfied with herself.

He looked around the rest of the room, two soldiers stood on either side of Azula, three more stood near the room's main entrance, and about fifteen sat to the side of the hall. Among these, he saw Lu Ten, looking more content than he'd yet seen him. He stood and came closer, contentment transforming into concern.

"What happened to you?" He reached out, and Zuko backed up slightly, just out of reach.

"Avatar State, flying rocks." His cousin's eyes grew large. "Just bruises." Well, and several minor scratches and the bandaged gauge by his ribs, but those were largely hidden. And the shiny new burn given to him by this man's father, but this one wouldn't scar—wouldn't scar.

"Well I'm glad your alright, for the most part. You had me alittle worried there, sleeping for nearly a whole day." The concern felt so much like Uncle's doting, but Uncle had known not to dote in public, it looked bad it made him look weak. Why was Lu Ten acting so concerned infront of so many? Mai had said he needed to trust someone, but he couldn't shake the knowledge that in order to be here, Lu Ten had to have accepted Uncle's imprisonment; Uncle had betrayed him and the Fire Nation but Lut Ten had betrayed his own father—how was that trustworthy. He could trust Azula to be Azula, but Azula always lied. "Congratulations on a successful mission, by the way!"

He was introduced to a sergeant named Genji who Lu Ten seemed to know well, then most of the other soldiers in the palace, then Ty Lee pulled him aside and did up his hair again.

After awhile as noon neared Mai walked past him and bruskly said with a sigh "Let's go," and walked out with him in metaphorical tow, since he'd been pulled in front of her by the sleeve as he recalled his Azula-sanctioned manners practice. She looked as happy to be doing this as he felt to get his eating habits criticized for a whole meal, because he was hungry and proper manners was not something he wanted between the food and his mouth.

Three sets of footsteps fell in behind them and the prickle of being watched tingled at the back of his neck, he took afew more steps telling himself they were his soldiers, but had to stop and turn to them. "We don't need—"

"Pardon, your highness but its protocol, we can't have you and the lady going into a potentially hazardous occupation zone on your own." The highest ranking of the three—or so Zuko assumed not being particularly well versed in the army's markings of rank—responded with a low bow.

Zuko realized this was not something he was going to get out of so he relented and dealt with the discomfort of being followed with this back to armed persons. The upper ring didn't look that different, nothing was burning or particularly damaged but it was lacking the calm liveliness of the chattering well-dressed walking around, instead there was the occasional patrol of Fire Nation soldiers. Also notable was the lack of the walls.

He led Mai to a restaurant he had passed by many times but not gotten the chance to go to. It always smelled very good from the street. They entered the empty establishment and were immediately guided to a table by the terrified owner and chef. There was no way for the man to know exactly who he was but the presence of soldiers—of any nation—was intimidating enough. Zuko briefly wondered whether this man knew just what was going on. Mai was perusing the menu with her normal bored expression while the chef continued to babble. His stomach, still too used to going empty to ache after twenty-nine hours, did find it suitable to growl. In the otherwise empty place the sound was loud and the chef paused, mortified.

"We'll just have the house special." he said to the frozen owner.

"Of course." He disappeared and came back almost immediately with bowls of a soup course hot off the stove and a steamer of dumplings two-tiers high. Zuko tucked right into the food, neatly of course and with proper chops tick etiquette. He was halfway through his second dumpling—dunking them in the soup—when one of the guards moving in on him brought him pause. Mai hadn't even lifted her chopsticks yet and looked mildly shocked. He swallowed his mouthful and asked, "What?"

She just blinked at him for a moment, then schooled her expression. "Well, I suppose we know its not poisoned." She picked up her utensils and shooed the guard from him in one fluid motion. Daintily and well-mannered she began eating as well but leaned slightly forward to speak low to Zuko. "You can't go around trusting an Earth Kingdom peasant more than your own soldiers, Zuko."

"He's not a peasant, he's either a wealthy or highly skilled businessman, it's a great honor to—"

"You're missing the point. You're not a wanted refugee tea server anymore, you're Zuko Crown Prince of the Fire Nation and conqueror of Ba Sing Se. What kind of impression do you think it gives that you balk at a guard of your own soldiers but accept food from a conquered person without hesitation?" These were the sorts of political etiquettes that had always made his head hurt, but he could understand that being so nervous of the guards was not a good look for a prince.

"Ok."

"And don't eat so fast, the food's not going to run away."

He sighed and put his chopsticks down. "Do we really have to do this? I remember how to eat properly, I'm just hungry."

"Well, it's either etiquette lessons or this is a date."

"Huh?" Oh, right, Azula was behind this. "Never mind, I've got it." There was a light blush on her face and it reminded him of the numerous times their childhood crushes had been used to tease both of them. There was no reason to think that had ceased. Was Mai trying to draw out the practice because she hated the idea of a date and preferred the pretense? But their breakfast yesterday hadn't been so bad, in fact it had felt almost like something. Preparing to put his foot very deeply in his mouth, and his own face becoming uncomfortably hot, he asked, "Do you want it to be? A date, I mean."

"Depends," she looked up from her plate to meet his eye in a serious way, "have you decided to trust someone yet? Other than the honored chef, I mean."

"Was there any reason he couldn't trust her? She was Azula's friend, but he and she had their own secrets before. She was kind of hard to read, but that was just her to a greater extent now than when they were younger. "I th—yes, I have."

She ate a dumpling slowly and deliberately, and the blush faded as though she were making it by force of will. "Is it me or Ty Lee?"

He laughed alittle. "You."

"Good," she said with a sly smile.

They ate in companiable silence for the most part interspersed with light conversation catching up. Mostly about her time at the academy and Omashu and Tom-Tom; interspersed with tales of his travels. He nearly forgot about the guards.

On the way back, as they four were walking back across the courtyard toward the palace. Zuko decided he had had enough of the guards. He took Mai's hand and pulled her off the pathway toward a line of bushes that had somewhere secluded and time consuming to get to behind them. They found themselves in a large garden with trees and all sorts of flowering bushes and beds. It was orderly but not as austere as the gardens back home. His shoulders instantly felt less tense.

"Wow you're really not used to the guards anymore are you?"

"Just needed to get away for a minute. It's nice here."

"Any particular reason you dragged me along?"

They stopped under one of the leafier trees. "Well, I didn't want to leave you there and figured you probably wanted to get away too. And… I don't know maybe I just wanted to be with you."

"We've been alone together for the last two hours."

"No, we haven't."

She looked around. "At least there are no fountains."

"I think I see one over there." He pointed to a glitter of water past some flowers.

"You are such a dork," she told him smiling. "I'm glad you're still a dork." She took a step closer to him.

He felt a really dumb smile cross his face. She was really pretty, not that he'd just noticed that—she was pretty at her grumpiest and now when she was smiling—but it was particularly obvious when she was this close. She was straightforward when she did speak unless it was to someone she knew she shouldn't so you always knew if she trusted you. "I love that you're so blunt." He paused, looking at her face, so close. "Can I-?"

She beat him to it, her lips pressed to his. It was soft and brief, but not quite as innocent as their last.

"Dork," she said when it was over with an affection that was actually detectable. Gently, she reached up put a hand to the side of his face, palm to cheek and fingertips coasting on the scar. He mirrored the motion and went in for a longer kiss.

When they went back into the palace shortly thereafter, they passed the pair of guards that been assigned to them, being walked around another part of the vast garden in the company of Lu Ten.