The Obvious Choice

The sun shown down on the balcony, energizing the red highlights all over the Royal Courtyard. The blue sky and white clouds were the only relief from the dreadful black architecture. Aang sighed and saw none of it.

Mai eyed him. "That's usually my line."

The monk did his best to push a polite smile on to his face. "I'm just a little disappointed. I was so sure Ty Lee may have been descended from the Air Nomads at some point. You know, because she's so jumpy. But all of my testing with her has shown nothing. She doesn't even have the slightest bit of Airbending chi."

Mai's own smile was small but genuine. "I just noted you were sighing like me, I didn't ask for the details of your latest love affair."

"WHA-?!?"

Mai sighed. "Relax, I was joking."

"Oh."

The silence that followed was as awkward as any Mai had perpetrated. She sighed again. "So why were you so sure Ty Lee was a secret Airbender. Just because she's agile?"

The seemed to reaquire the monk's interest. "I've found records, of a traitor to the Air Nomads, who came to live in the Fire Nation. I thought he might have had some descendants, you know, who weren't all killed or in hiding, and Ty Lee's features were so non-Firey..."

Time for another shot. "Ugh, I don't want to hear any more about Ty Lee's features."

"No!" Aang's blushed contrasted strangely with his arrow tattoo. "Not like that! I meant-"

"Me. Joking." This was getting depressing. "You're not very bright, you know that?"

His scowl was becoming fiercer. "Thanks."

"No, really. You have no understanding of Fire Nation humor, and you missed a real live Airbender who's been right under your nose the whole time."

It took a second to catch up. "Um... ?"

"You think Ty Lee jumps like an Airbender, but did you ever wonder how I can throw a little knife with such force that it can yank a grown man off his feet and drag him to be pinned to a wall?"

Maybe more than just a second. "Wait..."

She couldn't stop herself now, even if she wanted to. "No one can throw that hard. But with a little extra wind power..." She waved her hand, and a slight breeze passed over Mai and the Avatar.

His jaw couldn't have dropped any lower without broken bones.

She couldn't resist one last zinger. "So what do Air Nomad 'features' look like anyway?"

He was still beyond a response. Mai smirked. At least he wasn't stealing her sighing-shtick anymore.

END