mai has grown older, in your absence. that's fine, because you've grown older, too.

she's always been danger hidden behind hair-ribbons and shy smiles, you think. one day she curls up against your chest in the courtyard where you knocked her into a fountain, and she tells you, very casually, just how she tracked the avatar with azula and ty lee. how she let her own brother be held for ransom, how she clasped a pillow over her head when the kyoshi warriors begged and wailed and gnashed their teeth, how she first put a shuriken to a man's jugular (a most unglamorous colonial skirmish) and realized that yes yes she could dig the point in and let the blood pour over her hands slick and hot feel alive as he twitches his last.

you aren't sure if she's looking for absolution or praise— which is fine, because you've got the same dilemma going on. she speaks in this dead monotone, without inflection, without judgment. (and you so want to make her feel something. anything.)

you kiss her. because you understand, and because you are both still so young.

she smiles. looks like the hair-ribbon girl again.