AN: I think I ought to clarify how I imagine the structure of the Jasmine Dragon. I see it as a grand shop in the front, yet with a humble house in the back surrounded by some small gardens. I see Iroh to be living a very good and fulfilling, but humble life. I'm not sure how this lines up with canon…seeing as Iroh's shop appears to be SUPAH SUCCESSFUL but oh well. I feel like Iroh's past wanting all the grand material things in life, the things he surely enjoyed as a Fire Nation prince…well, with the exception of only the finest of teas perhaps. Oh and of course, as you now know, Mai is shoved in there somewhere, attempting to come to terms with her change in lifestyle. I hope you enjoy this update. :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Avatar. Unfortunately.
So it Goes
by: N3L
What happens in the aftermath of Zutara? A Zutara fic. But not for Zutara enthusiasts. A new chapter of her life unfolds as all she ever identified with is out of her grasp. Mai-centric
Part Two: Moving Mountains
Mai blinked. She felt horrible. Then she groaned as the sun streamed in through her windows. How could it be morning already? Infernal rays of light were shining into her very skull with the most unpleasant of ways. Ugh. It hurt her eyes to look at the light.
She rose from the bed and regretted it in an instant as her head pounded fiercely. Her hands flew to her head and massaged her scalp to no avail.
Ty Lee and all of her bright ideas. Mai grumbled, and thought about surrendering to the warm sheets of her bed to sleep away her hangover but finally decided against it.
Throwing on a simple outfit, she made sure that all the weaponry was perfectly concealed on her body and drew her long hair up in a ponytail then made her way outside of her given room and grumpily made her way into the kitchen.
Last night's dancing went by fair enough. It was not incredibly enjoyable and she did not have "the time of her life" as Ty Lee so joyfully put it, but Mai did enjoy spending some time with her friends. There were many silly moments that brought a smile to her face. Drinking though…Mai isn't one to enjoy alcohol. In fact, this pounding within her head further emphasized her dislike for the substance. Yet, somehow she found herself drinking last night. It might've started because Suki was egging her on. It might've started because she saw Zuko and Katara together in the same room only earlier the same day. The details were slightly fuzzy.
As she padded through the house, Mai was quite thankful for the quiet solidarity that the house afforded her. Iroh's absence was not unusual; the man started his days off quite early in the morning.
The young woman fumbled around in the personal kitchen, looking for some tea, idling wishing that there was a servant she could order to make some remedy as she sat nursing her headache. But alas, she was on her own. Fortunately Iroh is full of knowledge and skill when it comes to tea, and shared it with her often, whether she liked it or not.
Though at this moment, it made her wish that she had paid more attention.
Which tea was it that could help headaches? Maybe if she just drank some water it would help…Mai frowned at the tea set she acquired. With a huff of irritation, she ran out of patience and dug through the cupboard and settled on some green tea.
She unceremoniously dumped some tea leaves into the pot, and began to wait for the water to boil.
The wait felt a lot more tedious than it ought to have. When her cup was finally filled with the light greenish liquid, she blew gently on it and began to sip.
Then stumbled over to the sink and spat it out.
Ugh. This tea is terrible. It's over done, and much, much too strong. She walked over to the window and threw it out without much of a glance.
She's startled to hear an animalistic shriek and rustling leaves in response.
Mai unsheathes a single blade and cautiously eyes the window. A few moments pass, and when she could hear nothing, slowly stuck her head outside.
So far, everything looked pretty normal. Nothing out of the ordinary could be spotted. The source of the noise remained a mystery. Until she decided to look directly above, and came face to face with a pair of green eyes, only centimeters away from her own.
Then shouted in surprise. Loudly.
She quickly ducked inside the house, teacup and blade still clutched in her hands. What the hell was that?
The animal shrieked again in response. Noises of scampering little feet followed. She heard it run in the direction of the shop. Mai exited the house and pursued the vile little creature that was probably ruining Iroh's herbs.
Only five steps out of the house did she still as she watched the little creature (which she now recognized) scamper up into the arms of a rather confused looking person.
Aang?
The Air Nomad straightened up from receiving Momo and was indeed, quite shocked to find the frozen form of Mai, posed in a quite a deadly fashion mid-chase, ready to murder, with a gleaming knife in one hand and in the other an even deadlier…tea cup?
The two (well, three, if you included Momo) startled beings blankly gaped at one another for a moment. Aang's mouth notably hung open for a second but he grew conscious of himself and shut it.
"Um…morning, Mai."
Realizing how utterly ridiculous she looked, Mai straightened up like the crack of a whip, flustered and fighting off the creeping feelings of embarrassment. "Aang. Good morning," she nodded and brought her hands together to subtly return the knife back to its rightful place only to notice then that her other hand gripping the emptied teacup. She eyed it for a moment, perplexed as to how it gotten there before quietly hiding it behind a fold of her tunic.
Aang is incredibly confused, and his eyes are wide. Momo is confused but incredibly indignant at having been ambushed under a shower of hot tea, then screamed at, and chased in a barbaric fashion all in such a short period of time.
Mai is trying to save what's left of her dignity but not succeeding too well; "Are you finished staring?" Her feet shifted, and she guiltily realized she wore her house slippers outside. Damn.
"Oh! Uh, sorry. I didn't mean to," he cleared his throat and looked away, his hand went up to comfort Momo, "so…what happened?"
He waited, but no response came.
Aang frowned and chanced another look only to find that Mai had disappeared into the house. Gee. Great. He stood there for a second longer, smoothing Momo's bristling fur before stepping back into Iroh's tea shop, still baffled.
At front of the teashop, due to open in an hour, Aang took his place at the table he shared with Iroh.
The tea shop owner eyed the young man questioningly, "What happened, Aang?"
Aang's curious expression of bewilderment did not change as he took a spoonful of porridge to his lips, then took a biscuit and broke off a piece of it for Momo.
"…I don't know." He shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat.
"…I see."
"Yup," Aang finished his porridge, "I dunno, Mai was outside and Momo too. I think she was chasing him. She looked like she was about to kill someone!" Aang's expression seem to melt into a pitiful incomprehension of just how anyonewould want to kill someone, much less his cute Momo.
It was then that Mai decided to reveal her presence from the doorway. She coolly looked over at Aang and his troublesome pet, "I wasn't going to kill him. I didn't even know it was him," she nodded at Iroh, "Good morning."
"But you had a knife in your hand!"
"I always have knives on me."
"Yeah, but it was ready in your hand! And how could you not know it was Momo!"
A roll of her eyes greeted him, "He was outside making noises. I thought he was some creature eating and trampling all the herbs in the garden or something."
"So you were going to kill it?" Aang's voice rose to an unmanly squeak.
"Yes."
Aang's jaw hung open, clearly missing her sarcasm. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes yet again.
"No."
"Then what were you going to do with that knife!"
"Cut some herbs, of course."
"Wh - seriously?"
"…No."
"What!"
"I wasn't going to kill him," she wasn't sure whether or not to be amused at the fact of Aang looking about ready to pop with the vehemence of his sheer confusion and disbelief, "I was just going to try to scare whatever it was away or something. Threaten it if need be. The knife was a precaution."
Iroh sat quietly and enjoyed his tea while listening to the volley of words tossed back and forth. Despite not having a clue about what they were talking about, it was amusing. He was also quite happy and proud to find that Mai would chase out creatures from harming his herbs. Such a sweetheart on the inside. He pieced what he could together and guessed at what happened though.
Aang's mouth hung open, "Oh," the excitement dialed down. "Well…You totally succeeded," he thought aloud to himself, reliving what he witnessed only minutes ago. Scaaary.
Mai's left eye twitched. "What?"
"I mean, you were terrifying. Seriously."
Her eyes narrowed in displeasure. Aang did not to notice and continued nonchalantly; he still appeared to be mainly talking to himself, "I mean really, that was really scary. Really scary thing to see, especially in a peaceful calm time like the morning. Man! Seriously. No wonder poor Momo ran for it. Who could blame him? If it were me I'd do the same thi –"
"Excuse me?"
Aang blinked as he finally noticed how dangerously low her voice became and what he implied. And how her eyes were narrowed, and mouth pulled into a taut frown. Realizing his mistake, he furiously tried to backpedal, "I mean! That is, uh, well you were – you looked," he saw Mai's hands disappear into her sleeves as she folded her arms, "…looked!," panic flit across his features, " – LIKE A – a- a true…warrior." The unmanly squeak returned, and Aang couldn't help but wince at it, hoping that Mai wasn't going to shred him to ribbons so early in the morning.
A nervous chuckle bubbled out of his throat as the offended female continued to glare at him silently, hands concealed from view.
The utter lameness of his attempted recovery was almost ridiculous enough to divert her offense. Even make her smile. Almost.
"…Idiot," with a quick turn she'd vanished into the shop's kitchen.
Chastised, Aang stared at the door as if to make sure Mai wasn't going to magically appear again before turning to face Iroh. Shamed at his blunder.
Iroh drank his tea with a smile, "what an interesting morning."
Aang wilted at his words, unamused.
"And that was quite a save." Iroh sniggered into his teacup, "a true warrior, eh, Aang?"
Aang scowled into his empty bowl. His mouth smartly clamped shut lest he shove his foot far up into it again.
Unable to keep himself from smiling, Iroh instead offered to refill the boy's porridge bowl.
The air bender relented and held out his bowl.
The door opened (Aang was quite thankful to have heard it this time), and Mai appeared in the doorway again, the tips of her fingers pressed to her temple. The headache had returned. Joy. "Is there a tea to ease my headache?"
"Hmmm, I might just know the thing. Come," he got up and joined her in the kitchen.
"Bit off more than you could chew, Mai?"
Mai sullenly leaned against the countertop, wordless.
Iroh sifted through his large collections of teas. "I see that you've had quite an eventful morning then." He had to resist teasing his cute little niece who so valiantly tried to save his precious herbs.
"Headache, Uncle. Headache." She reminded him and massages her temple for emphasis.
Iroh smiles amusedly and plucks something off the shelf finally and begins to prepare the drink.
Mai hesitantly joins him and Aang at the front of the shop with Iroh's persuasion. She doesn't really want to be there, not with her headache and definitely not with Aang and Momo.
But she grudgingly sat down.
Aang and Iroh dug into their porridge bowls and an almost amicable quiet filled the air. Almost. After about three seconds, it turned awkward. Momo glared at her cautiously from the other end of the table. Mai sipped at her tea and matched the creature's sentiment.
"…Waaait," Aang mercifully broke the silence. She noted that the corner of his mouth had a drop of porridge and proceeded to mentally urge him to wipe it. No such luck, as Aang continued obliviously, "weren't you holding a teacup?"
She sipped at her tea and flushed slightly. The headache subsided just the slightest, but her embarrassment certainly did not, "I was in the middle of making tea when I heard Momo outside."
"Oh. Right."
The awkwardness crept back in. Iroh pleasantly ate though and was completely unaffected. Aang slurped occasionally. Mai squinted into her teacup. And then it occurred to her that she had her own question to ask:
"What are you doing here anyway?" She should've been the one asking all the questions, really. Pfft, this is where she lived now! She was expected to be here, not him.
Aang shrugged, "I thought I might stay for another day or two before I leave for Omashu. Plus, Appa's really tired and he needs to rest for a little while. Poor guy."
"Oh! How is Bumi doing?" Iroh asked, a look of realization crossed his wrinkled face. "He is getting even older." *
Mai snorted quietly in response but a subtle hint of a smile was on her lips as she spoke, "You're one to talk, Uncle."
Later that day, Mai found herself crouched behind a rock, dusty, sweaty, and panting like a dog.
How unseemly.
But there were more important matters at hand, like dodging the shower of rocks coming her way. A cackle filled the air and the earth trembled. The wind howled in her ears. God, what was she doing here?
She leapt and rolled to her feet, down to her last twenty knives. Boulders rose and fell like living things in her path as they reached for her. They seem to fly at her from every direction possible! She ran, swerved, jumped, and did everything else short of flying into the sky. But only because she physically couldn't. Damn, that would be handy.
A mass of earth rises and ripples beneath her, she jumps and twists in the air and feels it brush her foot, only narrowly escaping. She lets a stiletto fly from her hand at her target, and uses another to help divert the path of a piece of rock. Eighteen left.
As soon as she lands, more come. She spies a tree ahead about fifty paces away, and makes a mad dash for it. A dark shape to her left rises, so she moves to right; underneath her quakes, and she jumps. Breathe, breathe, dodge, jump, twist, and don't even think about slipping. She manages to get by with a few scrapes. The tree was almost within arm reaching distance. Her legs wind up beneath her in anticipation to spring up into its branches. She's practically there and –
WHAM.
Her upper torso twists with the force of the blow, and her face comes dangerously close to the ground before her arms comes up to protect it. She goes into a roll on the ground and barely manages to stop the momentum by digging a knife and dragging it into the dirt. She crouches on the ground and grits her teeth as part of her back blooms into pain. The adrenaline rushing through her gets her up and running once more, and this time she makes it into the tree. The bark is rough against her hands but she is lucky to find a spot that she could crouch comfortably on and rest, if only for a short while. She raises a sleeved hand up to her mouth, attempting to muffle her harsh breaths.
The part of her back she landed on pulses and throbs hotly. The earth stands still, and the atmosphere grows quite, a stark contrast to the complete chaos before. She eyes her opponent from the shelter of the leaves, planning her next move.
A small distraction would be best. Something just to buy her a little time to fully disarm her opponent. Something small. She fingered one of the two daggers left on her person, then changed her mind to using a smaller blade.
The ground quivered, and everything shook, but she held her place among the branches. Another wave of fierce quaking came and intensified. Mai clung to tree, ruefully feeling like some mangy catbird someone was trying to shake free of the tree. Which wasn't horribly far off.
"You can't stay in that tree forever!"
That is true. She reclines as best she could and thinks. An idea strikes her and she begins breaking and carving bits and pieces of bark off the tree trunk till she has a good two handfuls. It was a long shot, but anything was worth trying at this point.
Mai bundles them up into one sleeve and slowly climbs down the tree as quietly as possible. She hovers above the ground at the last branch and takes in one single breath, gathering her wits about her. And as expected, the moment she landed the ground instantly sprang to life. She came close to tumbling again as a good sized clod of earth rose from under her and threw her off balance. But she recovered well enough as she comes to closing the distance between her and her enemy. A boulder comes flying at her. She dances out of the way. Then another. And another. It's endless. Some brush against her just barely. But she never breaks her speed, and as soon she reaches her opponent. She leaps and flips over the defensive wall of earth that springs up, readies the tree bark fisted within her sleeve mid air, and aims. The pieces scatter and hits her intended target square in the face.
An indignant squawk sounds satisfactorily to her ears as she lands behind them. That split second was all she needed. Crouching low, she kicks their feet out from under them and kneels over them, her fingers grasp over a pair of wrists, intent on immobilizing them -
But the air rushes out of her lungs as she's knocked back instantly. She immediately finds herself encased in solid rock up to her chest. Her heart is pounding, and her breathing is uneven and straining against the rock.
And she cannot not move.
A.
Single.
Inch.
"Shit," she breathes.
"HAH." Tophs crows, "GOTCHA, SUNSHINE." The earthbender pushes herself up and brushes away at her face and clothes momentarily to rid herself of the stray bits and pieces of tree bark.
Mai huffs in her earthy encasement.
She hears the sound of distant clapping reach her ears. The tiny orange clad figure of Aang approaches, apparently impressed and adequately entertained.
"Hey, not too bad there, Mai! You even got me working up a sweat!" Toph sits down in a chair she simultaneously makes from the ground. At eighteen, all the physical aspects that point to the noble lineage of her family shines in her fair skin, dark hair and womanly figure. Her attire is still tailored toward earth bending though as in rather simple in appearance; loose pants for mobility, a belted tunic of fine fabric, with her bare feet and hands are adorned with metal bent by the master herself.
Mai really isn't too keen at the moment however and attempts to wriggle her way out, but succeeds only in looking like fool. She scowls at her own useless efforts.
"What a compliment," Mai sees feels the strands of stray hair that hang irritatingly in her face that she cannot remove, "Mind letting me out now?"
Toph lounges in her impromptu chair and strokes her chin, deep in thought.
"Hey guys! That was pretty awesome," Aang joins them, horribly pristine and clean and dry Mai notes. She does her best to ignore the sweat mingled with dust and dirt coating her skin.
"So awesome," she intones. A large pebble annoyingly digs into her rib, she refrains from squirming again.
"'Course it was awesome," Toph drawls. "And no. I think I'll let you stay there for a minute or two, till I'm sure you won't shoot any of your pesky knives at me. I know you've still got some left on you!"
Mai glares daggers but then realizes it's useless on her blind friend. "Toph."
"Mai," Toph's voice is sickly sweet and almost innocent.
A soft growl emits from Mai's throat.
The earth suddenly softens and crumbles till she thankfully finds herself standing on her own two feet.
"Hey!" Toph cries.
Mai begins to dust herself off, "Thank you, Aang."
"Oh come on, Toph," Aang grins, "I really don't think you need Mai as a trophy."
"Yeah, well, you're up next, Twinkletoes. I'll flatten ya."
"Riiiiight," Aang is more than capable of deflecting Toph's many friendly threats by now, and turns to Mai. "Hey, that was a clever move with the tree bark! I never would've thought of doing that."
Toph snorts then grins impishly, "That was cheap trick! But I can totally understand and all. Got you that close to me anyhow."
"Cheap trick?" Mai raises and eyebrow as she straightens her dirtied clothing. She winces from the pain in her side. Frowning, she speaks, "You can earth bend," a pause, "really damn well at that."
Toph waves at the air dismissively, "Why thank ya, sunshine. And yeah, yeah. I know. Which is why I get why you had to pull cheap tricks and all."
Aang shifts on his feet, wary of Mai's deep glower and females at odds in general.
Toph's grin widens, and Mai's glower darkens before a conclusion comes forth. "You're not getting any more free tea," she straightens her back only to wince again. "Ow."
"You okay? It looked like you took a pretty hard fall earlier."
She was going to be covered in a fantastic number of bruises tomorrow. She lifted her sleeves and eyes critically at their sullied state. "Just dandy."
"Oh, sunshine's fine. She's pretty damn tough for a non-bender."
"Thanks for the faith, Toph," she speaks dryly. She'll never admit how being a non-bender can sting her pride. Stupid benders and their stupid bending. But there's just no more use in exhausting that train of thought as Zuko and Azula's blue blue flame come to mind. She blinks away her thoughts and settles for simply saying; "Well then. Try not to kill each other," as she retreats to give them room to spar. A lot of room.
She intended to go change and wash up as soon as possible but ended up getting lost in watching Toph and Aang spar. It was loud, as stones rose and crashed against each other. So unlike the whispering roars of fire bending that she was accustomed to. And she wasn't sure it could even really be called sparring. Mai was pretty sure anyone could easily be killed if they were caught up in the flurry of activity in that vicinity.
Mai had never really got the chance to see Toph and Aang's true power. The only few times she managed to get glimpses of it were when they were much younger, but she was usually preoccupied with her own fights.
But now, Mai stood in one of the outer rings of Ba Sing Se and could not help but feel awe as she watched her two friends go at it. Their titles as Master Benders were unquestionable.
The landscape changed with their very whims. Valleys formed. Mountains rose then fell. Chasms opens and closed. Stones managed to look light as a feather.
Mai recalled the pebble that dug into her ribs moments ago, and felt her bruised limbs aching.
The longer she watched, she realized how small she felt. And that she despised feeling that way. She had held her own against Toph, and came close to disarming her, she told herself. In that split moment, if she intended to kill Toph, she could have. She was not useless. Bending was not everything.
Still though, her attempts at comforting herself sounded empty at what she was witnessing with her own eyes.
Suddenly the grit and sweat coating her became unbearably suffocating and she turned to head back to the teahouse. The taste in her mouth grew bitter:
She cannot move mountains.
AN: * Bumi's 118, holy crap! But I figure he's just too awesome to die and is going to live forever.
Also, if anyone's curious as to how I envision Mai and Aang to look, here (please remove any spaces, as I'm sure many of you know it is impossible and impractical to be unable to post links on ff):
fc05. deviantart fs70/f/2011/027/6/b/so_it_goes_by_n3l-d3874a2. png
Thanks for reading. And I think this has more of a plot now. Damn. Goodbye, one-shot intentions. :(
arizony: Ah, I have not looked much into the arguments for Zutara (simply out of complete and utter disinterest) but I can see that you've refuted them skillfully in your profile. I for the most part, totally agree. It's a matter of the age of the audience and so on. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing. :) And I hope this chapter has lived up to your expectations.
Anime-freek14: Whew! Yeah, this is still pretty difficult to write, haha. Thanks so much for the R&R. :) I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
TheBlueFoxtrot A Samba : First, thanks for pointing out all those little errors I've missed while proof-reading. I apologize a forehand for anymore I may miss in this one. And also thanks for giving me your input on the story! It means quite a lot to me, but I have to say that I am a bit confused. I feel like Mai is sarcastic? She does make sarcastic statements in the least. But perhaps in this work, they've lessened in comparison to her canon-self. I feel that they would lessen as she ages. And as for Iroh, I did have trouble writing him and tried to add in a proverb this time (though..not very well, haha) as you suggested, but I am also pretty sure that in the canon show, a proverb did not fall from Iroh's lips every time he spoke. Iroh is indeed very wise, but also makes mistakes (such as ingesting that poisonous plant that closely resembles an exotic tea, if I recall correctly). Overall, thank you for reading and reviewing. :) I hope that you enjoyed this chapter.
INUJ E S 06: I was worried that there was waaayy too much backstory and that the story would get lost in it, so thanks so much for saying that. I'm glad that you got a good feel of the setting and everything. Thanks for reading and reviewing. :) I hope this chapter didn't disappoint you.
jin toshikazu: Jin! Oh, it's been a while. :) I hope you're doing well. You pointed out something that I never put much thought into: my writing style. Which has brought to my attention on how I really never thought to experiment much with it. :( Shame on me! But at least it seems like you enjoy it. And you FLATTER ME SURELY, haha. And ah yes, there are Ino fics sitting on my computer that are incomplete. Sigh, I've ran out of steam for a bit, but am not willing to give up just yet. I look forward to your Ino-centric updates too! ;) It'd be lovely to get some email notifications in the near future. *hint hint* And I'll try to do my best. Thanks for reading and reviewing. :)