It hadn't been twenty-four hours since Zuko had gotten his hair cut and he already hated it. Mom said it looked great, but she always said that after a haircut. Zuko didn't understand why or how making his head short and sharp like a dagger was so appealing. It was the same as everyone else's, as if it had come off a production line. Yet for some reason it drew great approval which Zuko could not understand.

He could only hope that he would learn to like it in time. Or at the very least, look at his face in the mirror without immediately feeling the urge to pull away. His hair had been like this before, and he hadn't had any problems, right? Zuko certainly couldn't remember feeling this way. It must just be a temporary feeling. Like when you try a food that you think might be gross. You want it to taste bad. It takes a few bites to realize it isn't.

Or maybe it was something else. The servants and guards hasn't looked at him the same since the proclamation. It was as if he was now a barely worth consideration, a cat scurrying about on the floor, more amusing than anything else. Or perhaps it was the fact that Mai was here. Talking to her always brought a funny feeling to his stomach. Yes, that must be it.

Mai.

He hadn't seen her in a while. Not since the incident anyway (of which he hoped she had been told nothing about by either Azula or Ty Lee). Like it always was when she came over, Zuko had paid attention to his dress, straightened out all the ruffles and had even combed his hair.

And yet he could not bring himself to speak with her. Zuko felt like nothing. Less than nothing. Would she even be interested now that he had lost his status? Become an embarrassment for the entire nation to see? Zuko did not want to find out the answer was no, so instead he decided to find no answer at all.

Which was why he was sitting cross-legged in front of a pond at the edge of the palace, where nobody would see him except for the turtleducks and the occasional chirping bird.

Though Zuko was far from the peace and tranquility type, he appreciated the calm. For once, he didn't feel as though anyone was just around the corner, looking for him. Father wanted nothing to do with him, Mother was busy with... something, and Azula was hanging out with her friends. The world was leaving Zuko alone today, and he was thankful for-

"Azula told me I'd find you here." said a familiar voice.

Zuko turned around. "Mai?" he asked, more a surprised outburst than a question.

"I was worried when you didn't come around this morning." she said dully.

"You were?" he asked, having somehow not expected his absence to have been noticed by anyone.

"Not really." she admitted. "It's just that you usually do, so I thought it might be interesting to see what was keeping you."

"Oh." Zuko said simply.

Mai sat down in front of him. "I guess you don't want to be around Azula right now, huh?" she asked. "What with the announcement and all."

Zuko tightened a little. "Y-You heard about that?" he asked. While he probably should have expected Mai to have heard by now, it still stung hearing it from her. A part of him was hoping nobody would mention his shame. Sometimes when he did something wrong everybody would bicker and gossip about it behind his back rather than confronting him about it. Usually he hated it. But just this once, he would have actually preferred it.

"Hard not to. My parents won't shut up about it." she said, pronouncing the word parents as though her tongue were made of sandpaper.

"Oh." Zuko said again, looking down at the ground. "What did they say?" he asked even though he didn't really want the answer.

Mai looked to her right. "Lots of stuff. I'll be honest, I didn't listen to most of it. They really want me to get closer to you now, though." she said nonchalantly.

His eyes went wide with surprise. "What?" he asked. It didn't make any sense. Zuko thought losing his title would make everyone want to ignore him. What would anyone want with a soon-to-be-forgotten prince?

"Yeah, something about your dad not caring about who you marry now that you're not next in line." Mai explained. "There's more to it than that but that's what got them all excited." she said dully.

Silence.

"Why are you looking at me like I have three heads?"

"Your parents want you and me to..." he trailed off, again surprised. Zuko couldn't imagine that anyone in the world would see him fit to marry, not even he did. The idea was a foreign one, and gave him an odd but familiar feeling in his stomach.

Mai rolled her eyes and sighed. "What, did you think I come here in a gilded carriage once a week just because I asked?" she asked rhetorically, forgetting how naive Zuko could be at times.

"I guess not." Zuko admitted, never having considered it. He had always thought of Mai and Ty Lee as just friends of the family. Did every visitor to the palace have some kind of hidden motive?

"Hey, just cause they play politics for a living doesn't mean I do." she said honestly, reading Zuko's cold expression. "I tell them I'll do it cause it gets me out of the house."

"Oh, right." Zuko acknowledged, somehow not comforted by that assurance.

A brief pause. "Well, and there's another reason."

"There is?" Zuko asked.

"Getting closer to you doesn't sound so bad." she admitted with a smile.

Zuko blushed, looking away as if in an attempt to hide his reddening skin. "Really?" he asked.

"Yes Zuko, really." she rolled her eyes.

Zuko swallowed. "Well, it's just that..." he trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

"I don't care about the stupid announcement." she said bluntly. "Frankly, dating the future Firelord sounds really stressful. You'd always be off and doing something."

Zuko considered for a moment. He had always thought that being the Crown Prince was cool and that girls would like that. The idea that it could even be thought as a negative hadn't crossed his mind. "I guess that makes sense." he said.

"Plus, you're much cuter without a crown in that pretty hair of yours." she added, again with a smile. "When did you get it cut like that? It suits you."

"Actually, it was my mom's idea." he said, voice shaky all of the sudden. For some reason Zuko didn't want Mai to like his new cut. He was hoping she liked it the old way. Well, he was hoping that anyone liked it the old way, he supposed, but Mai was special. She liked liked him. He wanted her to like him the way he was, not the way his mom made him.

Mai laughed. "Well, it's a good thing your mom knows what she's doing." she said, before reaching a hand into his hair and running her fingers through it.

Zuko brushed off her hand, not feeling comfortable with her touch. "Yeah, I guess so." he lied, Mai's praise somehow making the grief over his lost hair even stronger. "I uh, I really like your hair too." he added.

"Yeah, I know" she said simply, letting her hand return to her side.

"You do?" Zuko asked.

Mai chuckled. "Hard not to. Don't you remember all the times you asked to touch it when we were younger?" she asked.

He cringed. "O-Oh. Right. I remember." he said, vaguely recalling having a fascination with her shiny, straight locks.

"Do you remember that time you picked all those flowers for me from the garden?" she asked playfully.

Zuko blushed, his lips curling into a faint smile. "Yeah. I remember."

"So how would you feel about making some new memories?" she asked, putting an arm on his shoulder.

"Well, um..." Zuko stuttered, feeling cold suddenly. Part of him knew what Mai was asking, it was hard not to. Another part of him was hoping she meant something else, for reasons he couldn't explain. "I guess. What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean spending some time together, dummy." she said, laughing once more. "Maybe I could come over by myself some time, when your sister isn't around."

A pause. Zuko leaned forward. Spending some time together. He repeated in his mind. Like boyfriend and girlfriend. On some level it was what he always wanted. But now that he was on the verge of getting it something gave him pause. He imagined it - them - together. Mai courting the Prince Zuko. And the more he imagined it the less he wanted it. He didn't want to be Mai's Prince. He didn't want to be anyone's Prince. It wasn't just the idea of keeping his hair like that forever, though that was part of it. Something about being the Prince to a Princess made Zuko's stomach hurt, as though he were falling ill.

"What?" Mai asked, sensing some uncertainty on Zuko's part.

"I'm not sure." he said honestly. "I just don't know if I want to." he managed, cringing at his own words.

Mai felt as though Zuko had just slapped her in the cheek. I just don't know if I want to. In all her life she had never imagined being rejected by Zuko.

"Oh." she said finally, not sure how to react. At no point had she predicted this particular eventuality. "Well, maybe I should ask you again another time?" she asked, not knowing what else to say.

"Yeah." he managed, breathing a sigh of relief now that he knew he could change his mind later.

"Well I'll leave you to it." she said, getting up to leave. "I'm sorry about the crown." she said, suddenly thinking that now maybe may not have been the best time to make a move.

"Well, look who it is." Azula said, watching as Mai made her way through the door and back into her room. "How did things go with little Zu-zu?" she asked, trying to sound less interested than she really was.

"Why don't you ask him yourself, Azula." said Mai dully, not really wanting to recount what happened.

She smiled. "Oh don't be coy, Mai, we're only curious." she said simply. "You two have been crushing over eachother for years, after all."

"Yeah!" Ty Lee exclaimed. "You two are so cute together." she added.

A pause.

Mai sighed, finally letting her face show a slight smile. "You guys are the worst. You know that?" she said half-jokingly.

Ty Lee gave Mai a funny look. "Aww, did it not go well?" she asked, noticing her duller-than-usual aura. "I'm sorry Mai. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." she said, giving her a signature hug.

Mai's expression loosened slightly. She sighed. "It's alright." she said. "I should have figured that he wouldn't have gotten over the crown so quickly" she said matter-of-factly, giving Azula 'the look'. "I guess I thought he would have wanted some company."

"Zu-zu has been a little erratic as of late." Azula said, not elaborating what Zuko had done to earn that description. "It's getting difficult to tell what he wants one way or the other." she said honestly, hoping Mai's information would resolve answer one of a few big questions that had been troubling her for the last week.

"That's strange." Mai remarked. "Usually you always know what he's going to do next. You didn't predict this one?" she asked playfully, kind of glad that Azula appeared not to know something for once.

"I can't say I didn't have suspicions." she said honestly, looking at Ty Lee and then back at Mai. "But truthfully, ever since the announcement figuring my brother out has been a challenge." she lied.

Mai sighed. "Do you think he'll get back to normal?" she asked.

"Well..." Ty Lee chimed in.

"We don't know." Azula interrupted, preventing Ty Lee from having one of her traitorous outbursts.

"We?" Mai raised an eyebrow. She could tell when Azula was shutting Ty Lee up. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Don't act so suspicious, Mai." Azula said playfully, knowing very well that nothing she would say would curb her skeptical nature. "We're as interested in this as you are." she added honestly.

She narrowed her eyes. "And by interested you mean you know more than you're letting on." Mai said.

"I always know more than I'm letting on, Mai. You should know that about me." she said with a smirk. "But if you're to believe anything, it's that I honestly don't know what's going on with little Zu-zu. And I'd do you little good by telling you my unfounded suspicions." she said half-truthfully. While it was true revealing her little theory would do Mai little good, she was more concerned about the damages outside of their little friend group than she was concerned about the damages within.

"So you didn't make it so Zuko would say no?" Mai asked.

"Please, it would do everyone around here a lot of good if you two finally got together. If it means anything, I'll talk to him for you. Figure out what's wrong." she said honestly.

"Really?"

"Really." Azula assured her.

"Okay. Tell me how it goes." she said, crossing her arms before turning to leave. She's a lot of work. Mai thought to herself.

Azula and Ty Lee waited for her to close the door.

"Sooo..." Ty Lee trailed off.

"I suppose there's credibility your little aura theory after all." Azula said simply, not wishing to elaborate even behind closed doors.

"What are we going to do?" Ty Lee asked. "Are we going to tell Mai?"

"Not quite yet." she said, suppressing a smile at Ty Lee's blind trust in Mai. "However unlikely given the evidence, it is possible that little Zu-zu is just having a hard time dealing with the loss of his birthright." she explained. "It's best that we exercise caution. I'll speak with him today."

Ty Lee looked up at Azula, surprised. "You will?" she asked, having thought Azula had just lied to placate Mai.

"Indeed. You'd be surprised the things he tells me and nobody else."

It had been several hours since the conversation with Mai. Ty Lee had left after talking about life in the gardens for a few hours, leaving Azula alone. Azula always enjoyed her time with Ty Lee, so it was sad to see her go, especially knowing that she was going to the Fire Academy tomorrow and she wasn't. However Ty Lee's absence gave her time to do things that she couldn't otherwise do with her nipping at her heels.

Zuko wasn't in the gardens so Azula found him in the only other place he could be: in his room wrapped in blankets, book in hand with candles for light.

"Zuko." she said warmly, catching his attention.

"Hey Azula." Zuko responded, more or less lacking the hostility from day's past. The wound to his pride had mostly scabbed over now. That, and he had other things on his mind.

"I heard about what happened with Mai." Azula said simply, knowing that just mentioning it would probably be enough to get him talking. One of Zuko's biggest redeeming qualities is that he needed very little pretense to talk about serious matters.

Zuko tensed up. "Oh." he managed. "Tell her I said sorry." he said, knowing he'd likely offended her by saying no.

She raised an eyebrow. "Sorry?"

"Yeah." Zuko confirmed. "You know, for uh..." he stumbled in his speech. "telling her that I didn't want to hang out with her." he finally managed.

"She's not mad, you know." Azula assured, knowing that Zuko would probably have had a hard time reading Mai's reaction. "Just a little confused. She thought you were interested."

"So did I." Zuko said.

So did I? Azula thought to herself. That wasn't a response she had been expecting. "What do you mean?" she asked, a rare admission that she truly didn't understand.

"Well..." Zuko thought for a moment. "I like Mai. I think she's, um, you know..."

Azula laughed. "You're allowed to call her cute, Zuko."

"Right. I think Mai's really... cute. And beautiful." he added awkwardly, something about the word cute rubbing him the wrong way. "I like her a lot too. It's just, the way she talked about us. It's like she wanted to marry a Prince. Not me as a person. It just didn't feel right."

"Marry? She just asked you if you wanted to spend some time together." Azula remarked.

Zuko's face went red for a moment. "Yeah, I guess..." he stammered. "It's just like, that's what it all leads to, right?" he asked. "A girl doesn't just ask the Prince of the Fire Nation for some private dates if she just wants to be friends."

Azula raised an eyebrow. A logical deduction, to be sure. She just didn't expect Zuko to lay it out so plainly. "I suppose that's true enough." she said, taking a seat on Zuko's bedside.

"It just didn't feel right." he explained. "I can't explain it. I just think about us in the future, and I can't imagine it. It makes me feel all weird. And also she liked my haircut."

She laughed. "It didn't feel right that she liked your haircut?" she asked, again not having expected that response.

"Yes." he answered. "No. I mean... I..." he stuttered. "I don't like it."

"And because you don't like the new haircut, it's a bad thing that she does?" Azula probed further.

"Yeah. I guess I figure when I'm older my hair will be different."

Azula made a mental note of the hair issue before deciding to go down another line of questioning. "You said you didn't like how she wanted to marry a Prince. Would you rather she want to marry a Firelord?" she asked.

Zuko looked down. "I thought that was it at first, but the more I think about it that's even worse." he admitted. "Mai made a good point. As Firelord, I'll-" he stopped himself. "I would be very busy. Hardly any time to spend with anybody I marry. That doesn't seem fair does it?"

Azula nodded, having had similar thoughts herself. "I suppose not. Being Firelord comes with great responsibility."

"Yeah. I don't know how anyone in that position could even find love. Father spends so much time away from Mother, it's like they're not even together." he said. "Doesn't that bother you?" he asked. "If you become Firelord won't you want to love someone like everyone else gets to?"

Yes, Azula thought to herself, thinking back to the image of her on the Azure throne. Firelord Azula, all on her own. "The Firelord has a duty to the Nation and it's interests." she said matter-of-factly. "The truth is, people in our position rarely marry for love. Just someone who's both politically convenient and can continue the royal bloodline."

"I wish I could think like that." Zuko said, more to himself than anyone. "I just can't. It sounds so lonely." he said. "I want both. And before today, I thought I could have both. I thought I could be the Prince everyone wants me to be and be with Mai at the same time."

A pause. Azula took a deep breath.

"What about someone else?" she asked.

Zuko gave Azula a funny look. "What do you mean?"

"Do you think you could be the Prince everyone wants you to be with someone else?" she asked again.

Zuko thought for a moment. "I don't know." he said. "I don't think so."

Azula sighed. Looks like Ty Lee's auras aren't so accurate after all. "Very well." she said. "I'll convey your sincere apology to Mai." she promised, standing up from the bed.

"Thanks." he said. "Not for the apology. For talking about this with me too."

Azula stopped at the door. "You're welcome." she said simply, before leaving him to his reading.