Mai stuck to the shadows, making sure to keep away from sight.
She stirred the strength within her, letting it fill her legs, and leapt across the street over to the next roof. She landed against the rough tiles on her toes and dampened the rest of her weight with her fingertips. She stilled herself, listening for any sudden sounds. Nothing. She stuck her head over the roof, she hadn't lost her target yet.
Her father made his way through the dark streets alone and with his cloak pulled tight against himself. A too obvious and suspicious mark. His feet were too loud too for someone sneaking about. He wouldn't have lasted very long against her friends in hide-and-seek.
Mai followed from the rooftops with practiced ease.
They fought again earlier during dinner. Mother already told Father many times before what he was doing was wrong, but Father always said it was for the good of the Nation. Mai had sat through the same things said and shouted for six times already, and every time she had to pretend she wasn't hearing or seeing anything. Which was the same anytime her parents had something important to talk about but it was too much of a bother to wait for or tell her to leave.
Her father eventually found himself back at her favorite restaurant, the same one they'd always go to whenever she did something amazing like not complain about how long they had to stay in some governor's house or whenever any of her royal friends talked to her during the parties.
He looked around, knocked on the door, then someone let him inside. She'd learned from playing with Azula and the others that the more normal she looked the less noticeable she was when she wanted to be unseen. Another important lesson was how rarely people looked up. It was a favorite trick of the two terrors, how they would suddenly appear from the sky without warning when she thought she'd hidden herself well enough.
Mai jumped to the roof of the Five Treasures' first floor, then set her ear to the roof and held her breath. Solid stone carried sounds well, but with such a large building it wouldn't tell her much. At best it would let her know which floor most likely had people. She felt more than heard the faint footsteps of movement before they disappeared. She set her ear next to the wall of the second floor. She wasn't sure if she just couldn't hear anything, but it didn't tell her much.
She circled over to the other side of the building and checked the wall there as well. Nothing. Which either meant her father wasn't moving or there was a basement. Making guesses and checking whether she was right or wrong was something Raizu had made a very big deal about some time before. He said it was the same line of thinking that made the airships she hated riding a reality and also made the metal of her knives that much better.
She couldn't really think of too many things her father might be doing that could be considered something wrong. Maybe if she'd paid attention earlier she might've been able to try looking for specific words while trying to listen in. She'd long ago mastered the art of not listening to people talking in front of her, but she regretted not remembering anything important other than whatever this was was for the Nation.
Mai climbed down from her perch on the roof and set her ear to the ground. The only thing she got was cold. Toph made it look so easy using her feet, and she knew Raizu could see through walls somehow. There was a small bit of comfort that neither Zuko nor Azula could do it either, so it wasn't just a thing benders normally did. Ty Lee, however, kept talking about auras and she wondered if that somehow worked the same as Raizu's trick. If it did she'd have to try and learn it all the same because being this blind was annoying and she wasn't even the blind one among her friends.
She chuckled. Toph would have loved that one.
Mai frowned. That was really stupid of her just now. She wasn't sure if the people her father were meeting were dangerous. Or if he were meeting people at all. It made more sense that was he meeting people since her father was pretty low on that thing Raizu called an organization chart. And if it were really something that dealt with the whole Nation then he needed the help of someone higher up.
Mai briefly considered getting help from Raizu about sorting this all out, but if Father was dealing with something bad then she didn't want to betray her own family. A good citizen kept the good of the Nation in their heart, but she didn't trust herself to know better on what was for the best. She knew who she was and she knew that she wasn't in the position to decide for anyone but herself. But that didn't mean she didn't want to know either way. Knowing was half the battle.
And her father was clearly trying to pick a fight.
She sighed in her heart, making sure not to make a sound. She really needed to make more normal friends. Spending so much time around Azula and her siblings were making her think of things she didn't want to think about. At least until she didn't have a choice anymore to think about them.
But then her life wouldn't be as exciting as it was now.
Mai couldn't deny that the things she were learning were all things the academies would never teach her. That had been very clear the first time she surprised her teachers when she jumped up to the roof to get a ball someone lost. Her parents didn't really care that she could do the things she could do lately, they never cared too much about what she did as long as she wasn't bothering anyone so she thought it was all normal until she realized it really wasn't.
She felt a little guilty for doing this in the first place since part of her just wanted to see how far she could go when she wasn't comparing herself against people that weren't anywhere near normal.
She climbed back up to the roof and sat there in the cold.
She had two choices before her: go back and try again or try her luck and sneak into the building. Her friends, or at least two of them, made it very clear that everyone still had so much to learn about everything else. And being sneaky or being strong were two of those things. She admitted she knew too little about the situation inside, and that she also didn't know what could go wrong if she did. It was safer for her to walk away. She'd learned enough to know where her father went during his trips after the sun had set.
Mai sighed and stood up. She could try again another day. She wasn't even sure if they always met at the same place. Maybe the next time she followed her father she might see if he really were meeting with anyone else.
That's when she saw the shuffle of another cloak in the moonlight.
Mai laid herself flat against the roof once more. And saw the man do the same thing her father did: look around before knocking. She couldn't place a face to the voice, and now she regretted even more how little attention she paid whenever they visited any of the people her father worked with. But in her defense, against herself… Raizu was really starting to get to her. She didn't know before how that knowledge might have helped her. She also didn't really think she would ever follow her father through the streets after dark.
But more than that she was too focused on her father that it didn't occur to her that he could have just been the first one there. This would have been one of those times when Raizu would slap himself. She was too dignified for that though.
She rolled her eyes.
"Welcome Admiral Chan!"
Mai slapped herself.