This was written for azuremoon's prompt at Promptbending, which was 'female bonding'. Not the Gaang this time, but I hope you like it all the same. ^_^
Female Bonding
Mai heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Remind me why we're doing this again?"
"Because Azula thought we would be the best for the job," Ty Lee responded promptly, and then lowered her voice in a conspiratorial manner. "It's the least we can do. She'll never say it aloud, but I think she's feeling quite stressed at the moment."
"I wonder why," the dark-haired girl said dryly.
Ty Lee frowned. "I think it's because she couldn't stop the Avatar, and then Zuko disappeared again, and—"
Mai rolled her eyes. "That was a rhetorical question, Ty Lee."
"Oh, right. I knew that."
They travelled in silence for a while—or, rather, Mai said nothing while Ty Lee chattered happily about cloud shapes, that cute boy with the ponytail, and what would be the best method to make Azula's aura a nice, happy pink. It was true that none of these subjects much appealed to Mai, who thought that clouds just looked like clouds, the boy with the ponytail was a loud-mouthed idiot, and auras were a pack of wishy-washy nonsense. But she still liked Ty Lee (though she'd never say it in so many words), and appreciated her friend's affectionate nature and optimism (again, not that she'd ever admit it aloud). So, instead of making another dry comment that she knew would just upset the perky brunette, she kept her mouth shut and tried not to think about how the animal she was riding smelt like fish mixed with something found under a rock.
Never mind, the smell of fishy horridness was pretty much impossible to ignore. Mai glared in subtle disgust at the creature Azula had given them to help track their quarry. Ugh, she was sure her clothes already reeked of the scent. Definitely would have to bathe once she got back to base, and maybe she'd see if any of those Fire Nation army cooks knew how to make those fruit tarts she liked. Mmm, fruit tarts.
"Hey!" Ty Lee exclaimed. "There's some white fur on the foliage. We're getting closer!"
Mai pursed her lips. "How delightful. We get to trek into the haven of dirt and bugs."
"I'm sure it won't be that bad."
A flat expression was all Ty Lee got in response.
"You know Azula would want us to keep going," the brunette pointed out, perhaps sensing that Mai was about to go into her stubborn, 'you can't make me' mode. "She said she was going to focus on the drill while we were to continue following the Avatar's trail."
"Right," Mai said with a hint of distaste. "The Avatar."
How she was beginning to loathe that name. She had thought that getting out of Omashu would be the best thing for her; she hadn't even asked Azula what the mission would entail, she was so determined to leave. But then she had discovered they were chasing Zuko and General Iroh (it still bothered her that Zuko had been labelled a traitor), and then the Avatar had come into the picture and things had just got worse. First her brother was kidnapped and got dragged into Azula's stupid games; then they were forced to follow the idiot kid and his bison all over the Earth Kingdom, with no rest or any of the usual comforts she enjoyed; then she got wet because of said bison (Mai hated getting wet), and now they were about to go into a thick expanse of bush that would probably leave her looking a wreck. And it was all because of the Avatar.
"Come on, Mai," Ty Lee cajoled, hopping down from her eel-hound and fixing her friend with a bright smile. "Just think how much you'll enjoy getting to use your knives again; we haven't had a good fight since we lost the Avatar in the desert."
Mai pondered this thought for a moment. She was itching for a rematch (especially after being defeated so humiliatingly the last time), but then she didn't much care for hiking, and she knew that there was no way they would be able to take the eel-hounds into the bush; the creatures were just too big.
"Fine," she said in her expressionless way, slipping down from the eel-hound's back. "Let's get this over with."
Ty Lee clapped her hands in delight, stating that she knew her friend would come around, and then pranced into the bush. Mai followed with much more reserve, occasionally giving unimpressed looks at the tree roots and thick, overhanging leaves getting in her way. It was annoying, but nothing she couldn't handle. Fifteen minutes more of this, however, and she had twigs stuck in her hair, a few cuts on her face and hands, and her boots were covered in animal dung, which she had accidentally stepped in when climbing over a fallen tree trunk.
"Remind me why I agreed to this again?" Mai said in an echo of her earlier words, shooting a dark look at her friend.
"Aw, don't be like that, Mai," Ty Lee responded, and then she held her arms out as if to embrace the world. "Think of this as a time of female bonding. Just us, the trees, and—"
Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet crumbled away with a rumbling sound, sending them both sliding down the now slippery slope and into a bog of muddy, foul-smelling water. Mai rolled off her friend and spat a bit of leaf out of her mouth, now drenched and dirtier than ever.
"Female bonding, huh?" she said, giving Ty Lee her most dour expression.
Ty lee gave a sheepish laugh. "Maybe it will lead to a shortcut."
Mai just closed her eyes. "Someone kill me now."