Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender is not ours.

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Chapter 2: One Step Closer

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It was Mai's sixteenth birthday. She didn't usually enjoy her birthday, but on this day, society considered her a woman. A marriageable woman. If she were lucky, her mere betrothal to Fire Lord Zuko would end that day, making way for an adult engagement. She smiled out her window at the palace. What was Zuko thinking about this morning? Was it her? Then she remembered that Zuko had meetings scheduled until halfway through her party that night; he would be thinking of the nation's problems and business. He always put that above everything else. It was probably the right thing to do, but it still hurt Mai a bit.

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A messenger hawk flew over the palace's walls. Mai supposed it was off to some outpost. She lost interest until she saw it was coming straight for her window. She stared from the hawk to the palace. Fire spiraled up from a balcony, and Mai saw Zuko standing under it. He waved at her enthusiastically before disappearing back inside.

Mai opened the scroll and read the message hungrily.

"My dear Mai,

Happy Birthday! The meetings today are necessary for the country, but each one is torture because it keeps me from spending time with you on your special day. Each one of them without my future Fire Lady is hard to concentrate through."

Mai smiled ever broader. That gave her hope that Zuko would move forward very soon. She kept reading.

"I'll make sure we have plenty of time alone tonight to make up for the rest of the day. Don't let the party bore you too much!

Love,

Zuko"

Mai laughed the way she did when no one was around. She danced to the other side of the room. She put the letter under her picture of herself with Zuko. Then she got dressed, taking pains to make herself look perfect.

"Good morning and happy birthday, daughter!" Mai's mother swept into the room, with Tom-Tom waddling behind her.

Mai pulled the letter out from under the picture and slid it up her sleeve. No need for her mother to be involved in her love life.

"To think! Last year, you were in jail. We almost had to scrape for something to redeem the family! Thankfully, you chose the right side…" The woman trailed off. "I don't know how you knew Prince Zuko would triumph, but you made the right choice. Now our family is more prominent than ever!" she smiled widely. "And now you are coming out, opportunity is broader than ever!"

Mai focused on Tom-Tom. "Good morning, little guy. You don't care if you become powerful or not, do you?"

"Mai!" Tom-Tom laughed and held his hands out to her.

Mai picked him up. "It's a party day, Tom-Tom," she said.

"Party!" Tom-Tom giggled.

"With fruit tarts," Mai added.

"Tarts!" Tom-Tom clapped.

"Are you ignoring me?" Mai's mother asked.

"What did you say?" Mai pretended to be sincere.

"It doesn't matter, so long as you wear a dress today."

Mai's face twitched, but she said nothing. After all, if there was one thing her mother knew about, it was dressing to impress.

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"Miss… Topekaia..." Zuko read the name off a piece of paper, sounding out all the syllables to make sure he was saying it right. "So you're from the colonies… Okay." He put the paper down, now done with it. "I know you didn't ask for any job in particular. I have one in mind, but I don't know if anyone told you what it was. Did they?"

"Yes, of course, Fire Lord Zuko." The young woman nodded her head gently.

I thought she was supposed to be a proficient firebender… why isn't she getting impatient yet? Zuko shrugged it off mentally. Impatience could very well just be something he was used to personally, and might not be widespread. "Well, the reason I'm considering you for the job is sort of complicated. You're a good fighter, so if something happens, you'll be able to protect Mai... the little bit that she needs protection. Also, Lady Mai probably won't put up with anyone who can't fight. I'm interviewing you now because I want to see if your personality will hold up under constant exposure to Lady Mai." Zuko tried not to smirk, but knew it was a lost cause.

Topekaia smiled. She surprised herself with how genuine the gesture was. "When they told me what this job would be, they also gave me the choice to decline. I wouldn't be here if I didn't know I could handle it."

Zuko smiled. "I like you. If you want, you can meet Mai tonight. It's her birthday. I have to get back to council meetings. But it was nice meeting you."

"Oh yes of course, I would love to meet her tonight." Topekaia's words were spoken calmly but the twinkling in her eyes hinted at her excitement.

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After long hours of preparation, Mai sat in one of the large party rooms her family's house boasted. The party guests would soon be arriving, and there were only a few hours before Zuko's palanquin would arrive. She blushed at the roof, and hoped her mother didn't notice.

"Are you embarrassed about something?" came the question she'd been hoping she wouldn't hear.

"I'm excited, Mother. Not embarrassed."

"You should be excited. Now is the time to attract a backup plan in case Prince Zuko grows tired of you."

Mai's blush disappeared and a glare replaced it. "Zuko won't change his mind or get tired of me, Mother. And you really should start calling him Fire Lord."

"His father got tired of his mother," Mai's mother said with a shrug.

Mai gritted her teeth. There was no use in arguing with her mother, after all.

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Not long afterwards, Mai scanned the room. There were other noblewomen lined up against the walls in little clumps. She did know some of them, but being Azula's friend hadn't left much opportunity for socializing. Now most of them looked as if they wanted to bite her head off. She avoided them. Finally, her eyes settled on the one person in the room whose skin was a shade darker than the rest. "Katara!" Mai called as she hurried over.

Now that she had been acknowledged, Katara hurried towards her friend. The two young women hugged.

"Happy birthday!" Katara greeted Mai. An inquisitive look passed over her face, and she opened her mouth as though about to speak, but then shut it again.

"What's on your mind?" Mai asked, anxious that this little mystery be solved before her already-bored mind could draw conclusions.

"Where's Zuko?" Katara asked.

Mai sighed. "This is probably the fifth council meeting today. He's trying to get all the old politicians on his side. The ones he can't win over he'll have to decide how to handle. Therefore, he's been unable to do anything else since this morning. He'll be here halfway through the party."

It wasn't the clearest of explanations, but Katara got the drift that Zuko was tied up in meetings.

Katara put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mai." Then she lowered her voice. "Is one supposed to do anything other than mingle? And what is the polite way of greeting someone you've never met? Oh, and I hope you don't mind, but my bags are sitting in your front hallway."

Mai shrugged. "I'm a bad person to ask. There are different rules for birthday parties than the usual party, and I don't want you to be too formal… like me." Mai rolled her eyes at herself. "This is the first birthday party I haven't spent with Azula giving her private knife-throwing lessons or something. The birthday part of it was that she'd tease me more than usual about Zuko." She shook her head. "I wouldn't suggest talking to any of these girls, but if you wanted to, you could say: Hello. There's nothing all that special for the average casual party... it ought to be the same situation here. Just give them the usual greeting, bow and introduce yourself." After looking around again, Mai continued, "Where are you planning on staying? My servants could take your bags there. If you'd like to stay here, I can show you to your room now."

Katara grimaced slightly. "I actually don't know. I didn't have time to figure that out. I barely got the invitation in time to get here for this... I left about three hours after getting the invitation... and I still just barely made it."

"Then you're staying here. Come with me." Mai grabbed Katara's arm and dragged her into the entryway. Dropping Katara's arm, Mai grabbed Katara's luggage and hurried to the guest quarters. "I'm doing this mostly to get out of there," she said over her shoulder. "All those girls in there look like they want to kill me, and I don't know why Mom invited them as I don't know any one of them."

Katara raised an eyebrow. "Because a party wouldn't be a proper party without guests? And don't you think people will find it rather strange that you're abandoning your own party?"

Mai had reached a door. She put the bags down to open it. "She could have invited people I actually care for." Mai thought about that statement for a moment and then laughed. "Actually, that would probably mean not having a party, unless I invited Ty Lee…" Mai frowned. "Ty Lee, who happens to be way too busy taking care of Kyoshi Island …" She shook her head. "Besides, I'll only be gone a few minutes." She placed Katara's luggage in a corner of the room. "Hospitality is something we don't exactly shirk in the Fire Nation, even though you probably haven't had much opportunity to be treated to it." Mai shot Katara a wicked grin before sweeping past her back into the hall.

"What was that grin for?" Katara asked in confusion.

Mai laughed and shook her head. "I don't imagine Fire Nation hospitality is something you're familiar with, and in the past, I haven't exactly helped with that." She hurried down the hall to a window and leaned out. It would be easy to tell if the meetings had ended and Zuko was on his way. She was suddenly impatient for his arrival.

Katara sighed, thinking about Aang. She hadn't seen him in nearly six months, which was the longest they'd been apart since they'd met. "It must be nice to live so close to Zuko," Katara said somewhat wistfully, joining Mai at the window.

Mai was still studying the palace, looking for movement at the gates. "Sometimes it doesn't feel like I do. Ever since he became Fire Lord he has less and less time. I know it sounds selfish, but I miss him."

"I know what you mean."

Mai sighed, thinking she'd have to wait even longer before she could be reunited with Zuko. "I'm glad I'm not the only one."

Katara was about to turn away from the window, as Mai already had, when she spotted some sort of commotion at the gates to the palace. A man had walked out of them, and it appeared that some other people were trying to force him onto a palanquin. Wait a minute. Katara looked more closely at the man. It was Zuko! Katara hurried over to Mai, who was now standing in the doorway, apparently waiting for her.

"Zuko's on his way," Katara told her, with a slightly smug, half-mischievous grin.

Mai brightened and hurried back to the window. She laughed out loud at the scene, and it was close enough that Zuko looked over in surprise. Mai ran down the stairs.

Katara followed her, although at a much more sedate pace. She was excited to be seeing Zuko, too, as it had been a little more than half a year since she had last seen him.
Mai ran through the party, using her assassin-like skills to go unnoticed until she burst onto the porch.

Zuko had still been unable to cross the street to get to her house, so Mai ran across it to meet him. She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his cloak. "Finally!" she heaved in a sigh.

Zuko hugged her back, startled that she had overstepped propriety in not waiting for him, and liking it very much.

Katara needed no assassin-like skills to slip through the party unnoticed, as she was universally ignored. Although unaware of the Fire Nation's rules of propriety, she waited on the porch of Mai's house for the couple, wanting to give Mai some time alone with Zuko.

Zuko looked over Mai's head at the guards. "I guess we can ride the palanquin across the street." He pulled Mai into the palanquin with him, to which she offered no objection. It only took the palanquin bearers a few steps to get to Mai's porch. "Is that Katara over there?" Zuko whispered.

Mai nodded.

"You're going to have to let me go if I'm supposed to say hello properly."

Mai looked up at him long enough to pout, but then climbed out of the palanquin.

Zuko followed her and escorted her up the porch stairs. "Hello, Katara." Zuko offered Katara a hug.

Katara hugged him back. "Hello, Zuko! It's so nice to see you again." She let go and turned away slightly. Seeing Zuko reminded her of them traveling together, which reminded her of Aang, who she hadn't seen for nearly five months.

Zuko frowned. "What's wrong, Katara?" Without thinking about it, he'd moved back to put an arm around Mai.

Katara tried to smile cheerfully, not wanting to bring a depressed mood to Mai's birthday. "Nothing, really. I was just thinking about Aang. Shall we go inside?"

Zuko and Mai had been on the other end of this conversation enough times to know that dropping the subject was best in these situations.

"Let's go inside." Mai took the initiative, as it was supposed to be her party.

When the girls inside saw Zuko, artificial smiles stretched across their faces and they rearranged their hair flirtatiously.

Mai pointedly leaned into Zuko's shoulder, giving every one of the flirtatious noblewomen a look worthy of a future Fire Lady.

Zuko was completely oblivious to this, and when his guards followed him in, he moved away from them and to the end of the room, where there was a bench. "So, Birthday Girl, what would you like to do?" he whispered.

"I would like to know what kept you." Mai kept her tone sweet. There was no need to build up tension. She just wanted to know what he'd been doing that day.

Zuko completely understood this code language, and started describing the way the meetings had gone.

"The council members were sort of divided down the middle," Zuko explained. "I'm still trying to win over a few of the old influential officials, but I don't know how many more I'll have to give up on." A whole year and he still hadn't managed to win over everyone. Was this bad form?

"You don't have to grovel to everyone. Actually, you shouldn't have to grovel to anyone. It should be the other way around. They should want to agree with you. The fact that they don't is no fault of yours. They're just wrong-headed."

"I shouldn't make them agree with me."

Mai sighed. "I wasn't suggesting that you should. What I meant was that you should surround yourself with people who already agree with your principles, and if they don't agree in a dramatic way then you shouldn't consider them. Are these the men who are still faithful to your father?"

Zuko nodded, looking warily around the room. Who knew how many of the Order members' daughters were in this room and could carry messages? "I don't know what I can say to them. They know my father is worthless when it comes to ruling, especially since he has no bending left. I don't know why they insist on supporting him."

Mai sighed again. "Some people just don't know when they've lost. Some people will never give up without a fight."

Zuko gasped and jostled Mai. "Really funny, Mai."

Mai laughed quietly. "It's all right, Zuko. Some of them are probably just like you were a while ago. Maybe they're just confused. Time will tell. But for now... I'm done with politics." She turned to face Zuko. "It's my birthday and I know exactly what I want."

Zuko raised an eyebrow. "That being?"

Mai kissed him.

"Ah. That makes sense."

"You know, I am an adult now," she said casually. "When are you planning on letting me tag along to one of those meetings?"

Zuko raised his eyebrows at her. "You'd want to?"

"Of course!" Mai squeezed Zuko's arm. "It's the only way I'll get to see you, isn't it? Even when we're… oh, you know."

Zuko raised his eyebrows higher. "Yes… that reminds me…"

Mai's mouth twisted into a smirk. "Reminds you of what?"

"I'm taking you to the courtyard to show you. Privately." Zuko stood and took Mai's hand.

Mai caught Katara's eyes and, for just a moment, let all her emotions show. She was thrilled and nervous and her love of Zuko was prominent in her mind. She hid all of it again when her mother caught sight of her.

The look in her mother's eyes said it all: "Don't mess this up." "You'd better say yes." "We're counting on you."

Mai couldn't take any more and turned away.

When they reached the courtyard, Zuko turned to see Mai's grim expression. "What's wrong?" he asked frantically. He was terrified that she knew where this was going, but didn't want it to. What would he do if she rejected him? He tried to calm himself. She'd brought it up…

"My mom. Sorry. She just… gave me the look."

"Which one?" Zuko asked after he'd started breathing again.

"The one that says I'd better not mess this up."

Zuko frowned. "There's no way you can mess anything up, Mai. Besides, this is about you and me. Your mother has nothing to do with it."

Mai looked up at him shyly. She hadn't been shy around Zuko in so long… what was going on in her brain? Maybe it was hormones… or maybe it was because she was anticipating something so huge. "What… is between the two of us, Zuko?" She struggled to force the words out, beginning to tremble.

Zuko's face turned red. "Um… well… you know… wait, no you don't… I mean that… I'm… talking about the necklace I brought for you." Zuko shifted and pulled something small and red out of his pocket.

Mai worked very hard not to giggle. Giggling would not be the right thing to do. Ever. She won her battle against her girly side. She looked at the necklace in Zuko's palm. Dangling from a black ribbon was a red gem with an apple carved onto it.

"I know it's a Water Tribe tradition… necklaces like this… but I think it's… nice."

"Fire Nation traditions aren't enough?" Mai was already reaching for the necklace.
Zuko recovered, being used to interacting on this plane, and playfully held the necklace out of Mai's reach. "Fire Nation traditions don't give me anything I can use to stake my claim on what's mine. Water Tribe traditions do. I used the Water Tribe way."

Mai blushed. "What's… yours… mm." Was she growing faint? This was all so stupid. She didn't react this way to anything. Maybe she shouldn't have allowed Zuko to loosen her up so much. She was slipping. "What are you trying to say, Zuko?"

Zuko made a frustrated sound. "I'm… asking you if you'll accept this necklace as a step into engagement, which I will soon follow up with a question of when you want the wedding to be." The words were so rushed it took Mai a moment to separate each word in her mind.

"Give me the necklace already!" She jumped for it. "You know I want to marry you."

Zuko held the necklace away again, and captured Mai's chin with his other hand. "Will you marry me next month?"

Something in Mai shivered. She was so excited at the idea of only spending one month more waiting for the day she would be Zuko's wife. "Do I have to wait that long?" she managed.

Zuko laughed in a way that he didn't do too often.

A few faces peeked into the courtyard to see the Fire Lord standing over Mai and holding a piece of jewelry with a glittering red gem set into it. The jaws belonging to these faces dropped open, and were only closed when the gossip started.

"I didn't think you'd be so eager." Zuko caught Mai around the waist. "But yes, by my calculations, it should take about a month for everything to be ready. You wouldn't want to move too fast for Ty Lee to get in on it, would you?"

Ty Lee. Zuko had reminded Mai that Ty Lee was, in fact, her best friend. "I guess not." Mai's lower lip protruded in a sort of pout. "But I wouldn't mind if I got to marry you today."

Zuko sucked in a breath. That was a tempting thought. "There isn't much of today left," he pointed out.

"Don't remind me!" Mai resorted to deadpan in an effort to rein in her emotions. They were getting out of control. "I don't like thinking about how many hours have been wasted away from you on my birthday!"

"Think of it this way." Zuko moved around her to clasp the necklace around her neck. "On your next birthday, we'll be married, and as Fire Lady, you can be with me the whole day."

Mai blushed furiously and kissed Zuko before she could squeal. It was a good save.

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Katara overheard one of the young ladies talking to another.

"Have you heard yet? Zuko was in the courtyard with Mai, and he had some sort of necklace with him!"

"Maybe it's her birthday gift..."

Katara smiled to herself. What was so exciting about Zuko giving Mai a gift?

The first girl continued. "Maybe... But it was a strange looking necklace. It looked like it was a ribbon, and had something dangling off of it. Something dangling! How weird is that?"

Katara's eyes widened as she caught the description. Automatically, her hand went to her mother's necklace. Could Zuko be giving Mai a betrothal necklace Zuko? But... the Fire Nation didn't have that tradition, as far as she could tell. She shrugged to herself and started making her way over towards the entrance to the courtyard. Whatever it was, she was sure Mai would want someone to show it off to, once she and Zuko returned to the main party.

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Any and all reviews are appreciated!

Many thanks to ecogirl20 and gloomy maiko lover, who reviewed the first chapter!