Aang morosely swirled his drink around in his glass, his gaze slowly panning across the room from his position leaning against the corner of the bar. Normally, he's the life of the party, the first one there and the last one to leave, single-handedly keeping everyone's energy up.
Normally, he's not at the wedding of his ex-girlfriend and one of his best friends.
He'd been able to paste a smile on his face whenever Katara or Zuko looked directly at him, but it turned back into a sulk the second their attention drifted elsewhere. It's not that he's still in love with Katara, he mused as he drained his glass and waved the bartender over for refill. They had broken up six years ago, plenty of time to reflect and move on. It had ended amicably, and Aang didn't begrudge either her or Zuko when they had begun dating a year and a half later. A large part of that was that, as the Avatar, it was his responsibility to maintain peace and order throughout the world, which he couldn't do if he was busy being jealous and petty. It was his job to be the bigger man. Another part of it was that he just wanted Katara to be happy, no matter who she was with.
Still, it was one thing to graciously accept the situation, and quite another to have to celebrate their union in front of everyone they had ever met.
For most of the reception, Aang had been dodging other guests who seemed intent on sighing and looking at him with sad-eyes, as those he were an abandoned pygmy puma kitten. Every time he got away from them, he was confronted with Katara and Zuko trying way too hard to include him and aggressively making sure that he was having a good time. If the happy couple was busy, they would send in either Sokka or Toph to check up on him. Aang was not quick to anger, but if he had to tell someone, "Yes, I'm really fine," one more time, he was going to pull a Kyoshi and make a new island state, populated solely by him and the bartender.
After Toph's last terrible attempt at cheering him up ("Good god, I've been to funerals with people having more fun than you"), everybody had gotten the hint and largely left him alone. Aang could now get pleasantly drunk, focus on keeping his wet blanket-ness contained to his corner and building a pyramid out of his finished glasses of sake.
"Are you hoping to drink enough that you can no longer see the décor?" A deadpan voice spoke from somewhere around his left elbow. "Because you might actually die of alcohol poisoning before that happens."
"Hi, Mai," Aang greeted the lithe girl that had managed to sneak in next to him at the bar. The bartender silently brought her a glass of amber liquid before she could speak, and she took it without looking at him. Aang let his eyes rove around the ballroom, taking in the rather overwhelming decorations. "Yeah, the purple is an…interesting choice."
"Some bullshit about mixing the red and blue of the two cultures," Mai replied, sipping at her drink and pushing the purple napkin that came with it onto the floor. It slowly drifted down, mixing with the purple confetti and decorative purple mats that have been spread around underfoot. The entire room, from the floor to the ceiling and everything in between, was purple. Although Katara and Zuko each wore blue and red respectively, their robes were embroidered with purple accents. They had also requested that guests wear purple trinkets of their own. Aang had managed to find a purple gem, which he wore in his pierced ear. The color clashed horribly with his traditional orange and yellow Air Nomad robes, but he had worn it without complaint when they had asked. Mai, on the other hand, had clearly completely ignored them; she was wearing a burgundy and black dress that flattered her porcelain skin and amber eyes.
"Do you think they even considered just not inviting us?" Mai asked abruptly, and Aang was suddenly reminded that she was also at her ex's wedding. Aang didn't know that much about Zuko and Mai's relationship; from what he understood, they had been off and on until about five years ago. The timeline between the previous relationships breaking up and the new one starting was always pretty murky, and Aang didn't care to investigate further. If Katara left him to be with Zuko, or if Zuko had done the same to Mai to be with Katara, he didn't really need to know.
"I don't think that thought ever crossed their minds," Aang answered honestly. Katara and Zuko were incredibly dedicated to making sure that Aang never felt like they didn't want him in their lives anymore. He did appreciate that they were making the effort to include him and be friends with him, though if it often came across heavy-handed and awkward. They had actually tried to get him involved in the wedding itself, even asking if he could officiate. Fortunately for him, he had been right in the middle of some delicate negotiations between the Northern Water Tribe and a nearby Earth Kingdom island, and wouldn't be able to fly out until the day of the wedding, so he was able to dodge any real responsibilities.
"I almost wish they hadn't," Mai continued, draining the rest of her drink in a quick gulp. Like magic, the bartender appeared with another glass of the same drink. "I'm tired of everyone acting like I have three months to live."
"That's exactly what it is!" Aang exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air. The movement caused his drink to spill down his sleeve, and he bent it back into the glass without thinking. "Or like I've recently gone through a terrible tragedy." He put on his most earnest puppy dog eyes and covered Mai's free hand in his own. "Hey there, buddy," he imitated the offensively soothing tone that everyone had assumed when speaking to him that night. "How you holding up? Wanna talk about it?" Mai's expression didn't change, but he could see a twinkle of amusement in her eye that hadn't been there before.
"Right? Like I'm still going to be heartbroken over someone I dated when I was a teenager," Mai sounded offended at the very notion, but the speed with which she finished her drink told Aang it wasn't entirely false. He could understand; the relationships they had formed during the war had been intense, and it was hard to let those feelings go.
"Katara keeps insisting we 'hang out,'" Aang grumbled, setting down his drink so he can put up air quotes around the last two words. "Just the two of us, like the old days." He shrugged. "Bless their hearts, they're trying so hard, but I wish they'd just leave it alone."
"Yeah, their guilt is really inconvenient," Mai replied. "Zuko keeps trying to hire me to work in the palace guard so he can pay me a stupid amount of money."
Aang laughed at that; he was very familiar with Zuko's problem solving skills. He knew it came from a good place. Zuko was fixated on righting any wrongs he might have ever committed, and didn't seem to grasp that sometimes the best thing he could do was just leave it alone and let time heal the wound. His first step was always an apology, stating everything wrong he had ever done and how he intended to be better in the future. Since he had become Fire Lord, the second step was usually lavish gifts and money. Aang had had to gently explain that, despite being the Avatar, if he went flying around in a bison saddle trimmed with gold and rubies, he was going to be robbed. Not to mention the fact that Appa would never be able to fly again with the weight of all the junk Zuko wanted to give him.
"I'm guessing you've turned him down?" Aang drawled, finishing his glass and adding it to the pyramid on the bar top. He blinked at the new drink that had seem to come out of nowhere, and made a mental note to tell Zuko to hire this bartender to work in the palace full time.
"Of course, I'm not a charity case," Mai scowled. "Besides," she hesitated, contemplating the drink in her hand. "I mean, obviously I'm over him, and I'm happy for them, and blah blah blah, all that crap. But I don't exactly want to live in his house."
Aang nodded slowly; he understood where Mai was coming from all too well. "What do you do for work?" he asked suddenly, realizing that he had no idea what Mai had been up to for the past five years. Aang felt his own pang of guilt that he hadn't made more of an effort to keep in touch with her once she had broken up with Zuko, like she had only ever been an extension of him.
"I work in the Caldera City Museum, restoring and cataloguing the artifacts and texts." Well, that was certainly not what he had expected. Mai clearly caught the look on his face, and shrugged. "I don't hate it. I don't have to talk to people, the pay is pretty nice, and since the war ended a lot of ancient relics from the other nations have been popping up all over the Fire Nation." Aang wisely decided not to ask how these artifacts had ended up in the Fire Nation. He had seen enough stolen waterbending scrolls and poached badgermole pelts hanging on the walls of the Fire Nation elite to last a lifetime.
"Sounds interesting," Aang responded, holding up his hands defensively as she shot him an suspicious glare that showed that she thought he was being sarcastic. "I mean it! As an ancient relic myself, I'm a huge fan of museums." Mai didn't laugh at the joke, but she did audibly exhale out her nose, which Aang took to be her equivalent of a laugh. "So are you still doing the…" he trailed off and began motioning with his arms, pantomiming reaching up his left sleeve with his right hand and waving his right arm back and forth, making a "whoosh" sound with his mouth each time his hand shot towards her. "With the knives," he clarifies.
Mai raised one eyebrow. "Yes, I still have the knives. It's more of a hobby now that I'm not an international assassin." She finished her second drink, her tongue flicking out and capturing a stray droplet that caught on the corner of her mouth.
"What are you drinking anyway?" Aang asked as yet another glass of mysterious brown liquor appeared in Mai's hand.
"Fire whiskey," she replied. "Top shelf, finest in the city."
Aang didn't even want to know how much of the wedding budget was being sunk into Mai's drinking tonight. "Can I try it?"
Mai gave him a bemused look, but offered the glass to him. The tiny sip that he took was enough to have him coughing and gagging, his eyes bugging out like a cartoon character. The harsh drink managed to be both hot in temperature and spice level. The shot of sake he did to wash the taste down did little to help.
"Spirits, you are insane," he was finally able to say. He looked up just in time to catch Mai's dangerous smirk that made his stomach do some interesting flips.
"A little."
Aang cleared his throat, purely for fire whiskey reasons that had nothing to do with the way Mai's fingers brushed against his as he handed the glass back to her. Silence fell between them, and Aang fully expected Mai to get bored and move on from him.
"So what does the Avatar do?" she asked, rotating so she could rest both her elbows behind her on the bar.
"The Avatar is the link between the human world and the spirit world," Aang recited, his serious tone severely undercut by how much he was slurring his words. "Bridging divides, bringing peace, finding compromise, et cetera."
"That's not a job," Mai replied dryly. "I mean, what do you do?"
Aang thought he understood what she was getting at. "I travel a lot. I talk to people, see if there's anything they need help with. Sometimes there are problems with the local spirits, and I try to mediate. Same if there are problems between people. Sometimes people just want to talk." He paused, letting his mind wander over the past decade. "I look for evidence of the Air Nomads," he continued, quieter. "I check the air temples at least once a year, to see if any of them came back." He didn't have to say that he had yet to find anything, the continued lack of airbenders so long after the war was a hot topic in every nation.
He expected the usual awkward platitudes that he gets whenever he mentions the plight of his people. Nobody, especially nobody in the Fire Nation, ever seemed to know how to react. Instead, Mai said, "The museum has some Air Nomad items, if you'd like to see them."
"What?!" Aang stood up straight, almost knocking down his glass pyramid. Relics from the Air Temples were notoriously rare; the manner in which they had been decimated meant that almost everything had been reduced to ash. "What do you have?"
"Not a lot. A few scrolls, some artwork. An undamaged robe. Some more necklaces like this," she reached out to lift the pendant of Gyatso's necklace from where it was laying against his chest, rubbing her thumb over the engraving on the front.
"I would love to see them!" Aang exclaimed, a little louder than he had intended. "Thank you!" He got another one of those almost-smiles from Mai, where her mouth barely moved but her eyes crinkled a little.
"Heeeeey, party people!" A deafening voice rang out, cutting through the chatter of the crowd. Aang belatedly realized that the band had stopped playing a few minutes ago. Mai let go of the pendant and withdrew her hand from his chest, reaching out for the drink she had set on the bar.
Sokka was on a small dais set against one wall, clearly drunker than Aang and Mai put together. Toph was standing next to him, holding onto his elbow. Since the entire palace was stone, Aang assumed that her intention was to keep the Water Tribe man standing upright, rather than because she needed the guidance. There was a large stone vessel at each corner of the dais, but other than that it was completely bare. Katara and Zuko were standing just in front of the stage, clearly giggling at Sokka's antics. As though his yell hadn't been enough to get everyone's attention, Sokka began waving his arms over his head.
"First of all, thank you all for being here, to celebrate the union of my baby sister and His Royal Fieriness," Sokka continued, ignoring the annoyed groans from the newly married couple. "Seriously, it means so much to have our friends and family from all four nations here to share this day with us." Aang felt a sharp pain at the mention of the four nations, painfully aware that he was the only one in orange in a sea of red, green, and blue.
"To commemorate their marriage, the blushing groom and his obnoxious bride will perform—Katara, please stop throwing things at me, I'm talking," Sokka interrupted himself to duck the wadded up napkin that Katara had chucked at his head. "Anyway, the new couple have put together a bending demonstration to entertain us. Take it away!" Sokka stepped down from the stage with very minimal stumbling, though Aang suspected that Toph's iron grip on his arm had something to do with that. A cheer went up as Katara and Zuko stepped onto the stage, and before long the entire ballroom was clapping and shouting. Aang set his drink down so he could join in. Mai did not.
As the two benders bowed formally to each other and took their beginning stances, a hush fell over the crowd. The band began to play a thumping, heavy beat, and they began to move. Katara drew her arms up, pulling water from the vases at the corners of the stage. Zuko created two fire whips, one trailing from each of his fists. They began to dance, the water and fire intertwining above and around them. Occasionally, the two elements would touch, eliciting a loud hiss and a cloud of steam. As usual, Aang found his attention drawn to Katara. She moved through each form precisely, deliberately, flawlessly. She danced like the ocean itself, gracefully flowing and gliding across the stage. Her jaw was clenched and her eyebrow furrowed, clearly using all of her focus. Every so often though, she would meet Zuko's gaze, and the ensuing smile was like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud.
Aang suddenly realized he was watching way too intensely with his dopey "looking at Katara" face, and promptly ducked his head to stare at his drink. He glanced over at Mai, who was also intently observing the performance with her lips pursed and her hand clenched around her glass. A second later, she too dropped her eyes down and took a long swig of her drink. Aang chanced a look back up at the dais, where Katara and Zuko were building up their grand finale: a dragon made of fire with water wings, looming over the hall. With a fluid synchronous movement, the pair smashed the elements together in a final explosion of steam, which obscured the stage. A thunder of applause shook the ballroom, and when the steam cleared Katara and Zuko stepped forward and bowed deeply, first to each other, then to the audience. Then they were laughing and cheering themselves, and Katara flung herself into Zuko's arms, letting him swing her around in a circle before kissing him deeply.
"I'm bored." Aang turned sharply toward Mai, noting the extra tightness in her monotone voice. "Let's get out of here. Don't you have that flying cow thing?"
"Actually, he's a sky bison," Aang corrected her, his intoxicated brain taking a minute to grasp the shift in their conversation. "And also I've had way too much sake to fly." He had learned the hard way that alcohol absolutely did not mix with air travel. People were rightfully horrified whenever he flung himself out of the saddle, and his depth perception was always a bit off when he was trying to land.
Mai rolled her eyes, downed the rest of her drink, and slammed it on the bar. "Whatever, I'm leaving." She began to walk away, but Aang reached out and snatched her wrist. "Wait," he said, without really having much of a follow-up. His mind was whirling; a large part of him felt like he should stay at the party. There were a lot of people here that he hadn't seen in a long time, and he really did want to show his support for Katara and Zuko. Whatever else had happened, they were two of his closest friends. However, the only part of the reception that he had enjoyed so far was talking to Mai. And he wondered if maybe, for one night, it was okay to forget about being Aang the Avatar, King of Compromise, and be Aang, the guy who was very bored and desperate to have just a little fun tonight.
A thought occurred to him, and a mischievous grin spread across his face. "Let's take the royal carriage instead."
Mai looked at him thoughtfully, and then she did something that Aang wasn't sure he had ever seen her do: she smiled. Not one of those eye-smiles, or a smirk at the corner of her lips. This was a full, dazzling smile, one that made Aang blink at how much it lit up the room.
"Yeah. That's better."
It was shockingly easy to steal the royal carriage. The coachmen who maintained it took a little convincing, but very few people could stand up against the "Of course it's okay, I'm the Avatar" argument. Moments later, the ostrich-horses were hooked up and Aang was perched on the driver's box, his long legs drawn up uncomfortably under himself and the reins clutched in his hands. A footman offered to help Mai into the carriage, but she ignored him and hopped up next to Aang, squishing herself into the small space. "Ready?" Aang asked, peering sideways at her with a spark in his eyes. She nodded, a trace of the smile still on her face. Before the palace workers could ask any more questions, Aang snapped the reins and shouted "Yip yip!", and the well-trained ostrich-horses took off.
Although the actual wedding and reception were only attended by friends and family, the entire city was celebrating the marriage. Civilians were out in the streets, drinking and dancing to street bands and filling their stomachs with food from roadside vendors. Their only warning for impending disaster was Aang's gleeful whooping and the rumble of the wheels bouncing against the street. Most people were used to such shenanigans during festivals, and it was pure instinct to grab everything they could and press themselves against the sides of the buildings as the carriage came ripping through the street. However, they were accustomed to the carts and wagons that drunken teenagers would race through the streets, and they gaped at the sight of the opulent royal carriage tearing past, driven by the distinctive willowy figure of the Avatar himself. After he shot by, they cautiously returned to the street, the only sign of the disturbance the echo of Aang yelling "sorry!" over his shoulder.
Aang took a corner too sharply and the outer wheel lifted into the air. The carriage tipped precariously, almost parallel to the ground, and Mai sunk her nails into Aang's arm to keep from falling out. Without breaking a beat, Aang jerked his elbow to bend a rock ledge against the upturned wheel, giving it something to brace against and allowing the carriage to balance itself. The wheel jumped from the earthbent ledge back to the cobblestone street with a resounding crash, causing one of the bolts that held the wheel in place to fall off. Aang craned his neck and watched the bolt roll into a sewer, then shrugged. "Probably not that important," he said breezily, snapping the reins again. He turned to check on Mai, only to be caught offguard by that smile again. She was still holding onto his arm, but she was also leaning over the side of the driver's box, letting the breeze ripple through her previously immaculate hair. Over the sound of the rushing wind, he was pretty sure he could hear her laugh.
Even in his current inebriated state, Aang knew better than to keep careening through the streets full of people trying to celebrate. He directed the carriage towards the shopping district, where fewer people lived. With almost everybody partying in their neighborhoods, the streets here were empty. Aang took another corner way too fast, the top of the carriage snapping off a sign that was hanging over a fabric store. "Whoops," he said cheerfully, not sounding terribly apologetic. "Do you want to drive?" he yelled towards Mai, holding out the reins to her. She took them from him and expertly cracked them to urge the ostrich-horses onward. His hands free, Aang stood up in the driver's box, bracing his hand against the top of the carriage.
"What are you doing?" Mai cast an exasperated glance up at him. Both of them had to shout to be heard over the wind.
"I want to ride on top!" Aang answered, swinging himself up on top of the carriage before Mai could argue. She turned in her seat to give him her best "are you a fucking idiot?" glare, and he smiled sunnily back at her. "Just keep driving!" he encouraged her, slowly rising to his feet. He took a wide stance with his arms spread out to keep himself balanced. It reminded him of surfing on Ember Island with Katara on boards made of ice, but he pushed that thought aside. Instead, he reveled in the feeling of being out in the air, the currents flowing around him, both trying to dislodge him and cradling him.
Mai scooched over so she was sitting the middle of the driver's box. Without saying anything, she jerked on the right rein, causing the carriage to do an almost instant 90-degree turn. Caught off guard, Aang shrieked and lost his balance, falling to one knee and bracing his hands on the roof of the carriage. Mai glanced up at him with a wicked grin, and Aang couldn't help but beam back at her.
"You'll have to try harder than that to get rid of me," he said, pulling himself to his feet again. Mai took that as a challenge and goaded the ostrich-horses to run even faster, but Aang was playing the game now too. He bent a smooth bump in the road in front of them, just big enough that when the carriage went over it at full speed, all four wheels and ostrich-horse feet flew off the ground. They were in the air for a good few seconds before the entire thing crashed back down to the earth. The ostrich-horses squawked indignantly at their unwanted experience in flight, and the wheel that had lost a bolt was definitely wobbling more than it had been at the start.
"You are insane!" Mai hollered, though from his position above her Aang could see that she was still grinning. He leapt in the air and used his airbending to float down next to her in the driver's box. She had to move back over to make enough space for him, their sides and arms still pressed together in a grounding way.
"A little," he echoed her response from earlier, and she shot him a look that tried to be annoyed but mostly came off amused. She passed the reins back over to him, and he allowed the carriage to slow down, the ostrich-horses clearly relieved at the change of pace. "We should probably head back," he added regretfully. Though he had had more fun in the past 10 minutes than he had the entire rest of his trip, it was getting late, and the alcohol in his system was making his eyes heavy. Mai simply nodded, and Aang pulled the carriage around back the way they had come, this time at a smooth trot.
They travelled most of the way back to the palace in a companionable silence. Aang took a longer way back, skirting around the busiest parts of the city. The summer air was warm and comfortable, even at night, and the air vaguely smelled of spices and flowers. Aang gazed up at the expanse of stars above them, and the full moon that hovered almost directly overhead.
"Do you still love her?" Startled, Aang turned towards Mai, but she wasn't looking at him. She was also staring up at the stars. Aang wordlessly opened his mouth, then shut it again. "Katara. I saw how you were watching her," Mai continued, her voice carefully neutral.
Aang paused to think about it. "I think a part of me will always love her," he answered truthfully. "She was the first person I saw when I woke up after a 100 years. We spent four years traveling together, taking care of each other, protecting each other. I don't think feelings like that can just go away." He shrugged, turning his attention back to the stars. "But I'm not in love with her anymore, if that's what you're asking." They lapsed into silence again, before Aang asked, "Do you still love him?"
"No," Mai answered instantly. "I…it was different, with us. I cared about him, but I was also angry with him a lot. He's still so caught up in his own honor and legacy, he wouldn't do anything without considering the political ramifications. He would go days without eating or sleeping. I felt like I was watching him destroy himself. He refused to share the burden, he just made me watch him slowly fade away." Perhaps realizing that she was sharing more than she had intended, Mai shook herself and sat up straight. "Anyway, we're fine now," she continued crisply. "That was years ago. We've grown up past that."
Aang had long since switched his attention from the sky to the woman sitting next to him. He considered what she had said, knowing full well what those first few years of Zuko being the Fire Lord was like. It was hard enough for him, seeing his friend kill himself with his work. He couldn't imagine what it had been like for Mai, sitting next to him and helplessly watching it happen. "Things from years ago can still hurt," he said cryptically. Mai didn't say anything, and he wisely dropped it.
The carriage trundled back to the palace stables. Aang jumped out of the perch, gliding gently to the ground. Mai leapt out after him, landing lightly on her feet. He could see the head of one of the coachmen peeking out from the stables, and gave the carriage an appraising look. Taking in the exhausted, panting ostrich-horses, the wheel that was definitely on the verge of falling off, and the scrape marks scrawled across both sides, Aang wisely decided that it would probably be in their best interest to not to dawdle.
"We should go," he muttered, grabbing Mai's hand and pulling her towards the palace. They ran until they were out of sight of the coachmen, but Mai dug in her feet as Aang tried to pull her through the side entrance they had snuck out of.
"I don't want to go back," she said, pulling her hand out of his to cross her arms. She didn't look quite as intimidating as she usually did, with her wild, wind-swept hair, but her expression told Aang he'd have a better chance turning back time than winning this argument with her. He froze, one hand on the door handle. He really wasn't looking forward to rejoining the reception either. The adrenaline rush of their little adventure had worn off and he was tired, and he did not relish resuming his place in the sad Avatar corner. He wondered if this was perhaps Mai's way of trying to get rid of him, but he brushed that thought aside. Any idiot could see that she had actually enjoyed herself tonight, and Aang suspected that if she wanted him to leave her alone, she would just tell him.
"I guess I don't either," he said softly, taking a step back from the door and letting his arm drop to his side. He met Mai's glance, and she looked him over thoughtfully. The quiet stretched on just long enough for Aang to find it unbearable before Mai spoke up.
"Want to go to my place? I don't have any of that terrible sake you were drinking, but I do have a bottle of guilt wine from Zuko that cost more than my rent."
Well, he'd have to be a fool to turn down an offer like that. Besides, if anyone else deserved to drink that fancy guilt wine, it was Aang. After a night of recklessness that he was 100% blaming on the sake, he figured he could get away with just a bit more. Grinning, he draped an arm over Mai's shoulders, tucking her against his side. "Lead the way!"
