Title : Through Her Eyes
Word Count : 314
Rating : K+
Disclaimer : I do not own any of the characters herein contained. I only own the text.
More angst (pronounced ankh-st, XD). I can write other things, I think, but this is all I have typed up. Something I wrote when I was bored after watching the Boiling Rock episode. I felt incredibly sorry for Mai. Really. She's so in love with Zuko, and I think he cares for her, I really do, but he doesn't choose her. Perhaps a continuation of the last drabble, The Gift of Kindness, (I have a tendency toward lame titles, clearly) but I didn't write it that way necessarily.
Mai, when she sees Zuko at the Boiling Rock, knows once and for all that she has lost him. She came in the hopes of gaining explanation, but also persuading him to stay with her. She loved him, even after getting his letter—note, really—saying that he cannot stay. But there, in his eyes, behind the defiance and sympathy and care, there is love. So deep, she doesn't know if he even knows that his heart has admitted another person. Not her. She could guess who, if she wanted to torture herself: the girl that despises him is a choice—he has always been masochistic. The earth bender is strong and disdainful of everyone equally—Zuko could certainly find comfort in the similar attitudes. Mai doesn't want to think further, but being a prisoner in her own mind, she is presented with other choices: Zuko has never been particularly interested in sex, but he isn't discerning either. The brother, a fighter to the end in a comedic and simple way could be it—Zuko himself is a fighter, and is perhaps drawn to the kindred spirit. The Avatar is one Mai almost wants to rule out for being ridiculous, but he is kind and generous enough for it to be plausible that Zuko is drawn to the unfamiliarity of such emotions. But whoever it is—she absolutely refuses to narrow the list down to one name, for fear that it will be the Avatar—has changed Zuko, consciously or not. He has become more noble, stronger and even kinder. She hopes he can change the world as the determination in his eyes proclaims. Later, when they are escaping, she holds this hope close to her broken heart, nursing it and simultaneously worsening it by fighting for his escape from her. But the world free of Ozai is worth one, just one, broken heart.