A/N: So you've had a bit of a wait. Well, I did say with school starting again my attention would be diverted. Anyway, I wanted Mai to have a big part in this story, but I don't want her lusting after Sokka. Ick, doesn't make sense to me. So. What does? Well, you are about to find out. Lucky you! Now who didn't see this coming?

Disclaimer: Well of course I don't own these characters or their universe. I just plays with them to suit my fancy, and respect all property rights held by others, being a good law-abiding citizen and all…

Chapter 9

Frankly, Sokka's brain was tired. It wasn't the physical inactivity; his childhood had conditioned him to periods of relative inactivity as the storms battered the polar ice-caps (as opposed to those exhilarating times when the men of the tribe obeyed the commands of the hunt leader and muscle memory without thinking, matched against the leviathans and more predatory creatures of the deep). As for his brain, well, he had thought he was inured to the more constant challenge of his ability to think on his feet that had made up so much of the last months, but in retrospect he had to admit that he'd always been more the back-up player in the grand scheme of things. Of course, that meant when actually called upon he'd often had to provide direction on a moment's notice. But yeah, it appeared that he had something of a talent for that.

Still, the reality was that he'd never been called upon to tax his ability to assess and act on a given series of situations so consistently over such a short period of time before. Anyway, usually the focus wasn't on him. And that made it immeasurably easier to think!

On the other hand, when he thought about the possibilities as to which of his friends he thought might be better suited to dealing with this particular situation, he found himself oddly grateful to find himself here instead. Because again, all too frankly, while none of them were prepared to cope, he was probably the easiest to do without. And maybe, just maybe, his talent for creative thinking in a pinch might just match up to even all the Avatar's abilities…

Sokka's shoulders perceptively relaxed. He rolled them deliberately; having given himself a mental pep-talk he should probably start thinking about just how to use all that creative thinking he was so proud of to further a plan of escape. It was time to think. Speaking of time…

It was, he believed, after sundown.

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He couldn't know for sure. A cell with no portholes, some meager confidence of being held below the waterline, and thus well below the horizon, and that strange observation of the lowering sun from high above the ship's main deck, had all left Sokka with only the vaguest sense of the physical passage of time.

It was too early, he considered, for the guard to be considering dousing the single lamp now burning in his cell. He'd already received a meal more than he was expecting for the day. So, what could he expect to happen next?

He'd had to confront his captors three – no, four! – times already since maybe mid-day; most recently an encounter with the princess of hell herself. So it seemed likely his day with them was done. It had not, he thought, reflected all that well on him. But, on balance, perhaps he'd nothing to be too ashamed of. Sokka admitted to himself that his interactions with the fire ladies to date had been, well, interesting, to say the least!

Of course, once the thought was formulated, the cell door had to rattle. By now he had learned to note the sound with a certain dread.

And, of course, it would be a helmeted fire-bender, his silhouette all the more formidable by the knowledge that Sokka would never see his face.

Ah but wait, this was the guy who had heated the bath water, wasn't it? Oh yes, there was something about his swagger that was vaguely distinctive, now wasn't there?

Still, it wasn't reassuring when he shoved Sokka out through the cell door, signaling a right rather than left at that first jog, leading him yet deeper into the bowels of the ship. Sokka's stomach fell as he remembered the princess's tacit admission of her intent to kill him.

Crap! This is it, then, isn't it? No more games, no more clever dodges. Damn. What a fuckin' failure I've been…

His steps deliberately slowed as he contemplated the various virtues of fighting a hopeless cause or facing his death with stoicism. It didn't help his state of mind to notice his guard was humming a recognizable air beneath his breath, whistling a bit on the high notes, but still quite melodic. Sokka's ear was good, and it briefly occurred to him that he could do worse than have this particular fire-bender sing his farewell dirge.

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The door that opened off the darkened corridor led into a room that seemed to span nearly half the ship's length and possibly two full levels of decking. It seemed inordinately generous for an execution chamber.

The presence of the taller, more starkly drawn member of the terrible trio in that cavernous chamber struck another odd note for Sokka; somehow she had appeared too fastidious to do someone else's dirty work. And Azula had admitted to enjoying killing people; would she really delegate such a pleasure to an underling?

Maybe.

Then again, the room itself was fairly easily identifiable as a training facility. A rack of weapons lined the far wall, which he doubted he'd have a chance to get anywhere near.

She-who-must-be-considered-master-of-all-things-sharp-and-pointy stood near the center of the room, hands hidden in her copious sleeves. Sokka heeded the fire-bender's equally pointed shove in her direction, not hastening his steps, but also not infusing any particular hesitation in them. He'd decided his best bet was to allow them no extra time to consider his movements, but still to grasp every instant of time that natural progression would allow him.

He was probably kidding himself but, hell, what were his options, anyway?

He stopped when the distance between them felt…could he call it comfortable? Well, at least, he stopped while still a good arm's length away. Surely that would have defined something of a comfort zone for her as well?

"Now what?"

Like most men, Sokka had been raised to greet his antagonist eye to eye. And so he'd noted with interest the distinctions between the broad-based warm-toned eyes of the Fire Nation as opposed to the myriad of hues between cobalt and teal to be found among the Water Tribes; he'd learned to appreciate the soft auburn of Kyoshi, the emerald of Ba Sing Se and the pale jade exquisite – and perhaps exclusive - to Toph.

And then, of course, there were Aang's clear grey eyes, darkening and clouded at times by fear and uncertainty, only to blaze an unholy white when the Avatar spirit came upon him.

Sokka had noticed Ty Lee's odd lack of expected pigment in her wide eyes, and suspected a strong element of air-bender background, either suppressed or formally denied. Ah well, given the century since anyone thought much about a Nomadic heritage, perhaps it was no big deal in the Fire Nation. And it was, after all, an easy assumption to make given her remarkable athleticism. He'd only seen its mirror image in Aang.

But Ty Lee's inegmatic gray eyes were not those he saw this night in the bowels of the Fire Nation ship.

As Sokka confronted Mai, his first thought was on how he could have missed her odd coloring, and where it fit in that neat compartmentalization he'd struggled so hard to maintain of the world's peoples…

Even as he noted the shadowed depths of the fire-assassin's eyes, she drew one arm from her voluminous sleeves to reveal the distinctive cold blue j-shape of his boomerang. It was unmistakable as the bright sheen of ambient light danced along its sensuous curves, interrupted by the shadows of carefully placed indentation and anchor holes, or polished and worn hollows from personal touch of thumb or palm…

…that found answering echoes in the calloused ridges lining his own hands, ridges built up over countless hours of practice reaching for perfection of aim and extension of reach by either arm.

He could not restrain a sudden hitch of breath at the sight, swearing briefly even as he processed this new information. Mai held her stance, and exhaled a sigh of satisfaction as she gauged Sokka's full recognition of his particular treasure.

"You… She doesn't know… Ah, shit." Sokka sincerely regretted the time it took for him to realize that Mai had had his boomerang in her possession the entire time, fully aware of the consequences. He forgot any maggoty consequence her strangely dark eyes might have heralded in his understandable plunge into confusion and potential intrigue.

"Yes, 'I'. And 'she' doesn't know. As for your lapse into vulgarity, well, I don't suppose you really expect a response to that," Mai intoned blandly, as she brandished Sokka's boomerang in one hand, a soft cloth in the other, with which she obviously intended to polish the weapon's surface.

"Does that mean you're gonna tell me what this is all about, or do I have to ask?" Sokka took hold of himself, aware that she had given him the moment to gather his senses together, and grudgingly grateful for it.

"It's no big mystery," the girl shrugged elegantly. "I have a… fondness for weapons. I collect particularly unusual ones. Do I really need to say more?"

"Oh," Sokka thought a moment.

"Actually, yes, you do. I mean, I can see then why you'd keep it and not tell the princess about it. Especially," he added with a grimace, "since as personal artifacts go it's really not much more help at convincing folks I'm still alive to be worth rescuing as anything else."

He paused. Mai's lip curled. It vaguely amused her to watch him attempt to contain his bitterness over his memory of their last encounter, and her obvious victory. She also appreciated that he did not attempt to deprecate either the value of his boomerang or her own interest in it for itself.

"But that doesn't explain why I'm here now. You don't give a damn about rubbing my nose in your possession of it now. So. Your turn."

Mai's smirk relaxed. How nice that he understood how little she cared about his feelings. The Tribesman climbed up a notch in her estimation for his recognition of her professionalism. Now came the more distasteful part.

"I attempted to note the technique required for throwing the weapon in our last several altercations, but I admit I didn't quite get it," she said with a scowl. "And I still haven't managed it."

It was Sokka's turn to smirk. "You want me to teach how to throw my boomerang."

Mai's face became adamantine, and her voice answered the question he had framed as a statement. "Yes."

"Not a chance."

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He folded one arm over the other, keeping his eyes trained upon the obsidian gaze of his opponent. He had earlier noted that his fire-bender guard still remained at attention near the room's doorway, likewise noting how Mai had kept her voice low enough pitched so it was unlikely that the guard would have heard the details of her speech. He had subconsciously responded in kind.

Sure enough, Mai's eyes' darted to the doorway and back, but in no other way did she acknowledge the shift in the dynamic of this confrontation.

Sokka clenched his teeth, his lower lip thrusting out in obstinacy. It wasn't much, and a part of him itched to get his hands, even if just once more, on the cold steel of his beloved boomerang. But perhaps this refusal was the best he could do in a last act of defiance against the Fire Nation.

Mai gazed at him appraisingly for a heartbeat or six, then sighed heavily as she turned on her heel and retreated to a low barricade separating their part of the chamber from the greater length of the room, dotted here and there with crude, man-shaped models of various heights and poses. She buried throwing stars in the nearest figure and kunai in two staggered further back with a movement of one arm that seemed almost languorous.

"Whatever. Odds are you won't survive long enough to teach me anyway. Of course, if you do, I could make it worth your while…"

Sokka swallowed hard even as he fought with an upsurge of admiration for the Fire Nation girl's skill. As he processed her words and the final suggestion worked its way through the fear paralyzing his soul, it suddenly occurred to him that more than just the dynamic of this particular encounter had shifted almost imperceptively in his favor.

Now all three of the Dangerous Ladies wanted something from him. While each had her own objectives, likewise each seemed prepared to discount the others in her pursuit of her goal. Ah, it was a virtual nothing to work with, but still… it might just possibly open a door for him to exploit, if he could just think hard enough about it, and just keep his eyes open to the opportunities!

Sokka cleared his throat loudly. "Nice placement. I don't suppose you'd let me try?"

Mai turned her head, not bothering to raise her brows in askance. "Surely you jest?"

Now Sokka shrugged. "Oh fine, if you're afraid I can disarm both you and Sparky back there before making some kind of spectacular escape under Azula's nose, don't bother. 'Ooh, gotta be careful for the scary Water Tribe prisoner…'" Waving his fingers provocatively, he injected what he hoped was the proper amount of mockery to tip the balance between pride and caution.

As expected, the Fire Nation girl strode back to stand mere feet from him, hands outstretched with a panoply of sharp instruments he'd never actually handled.

"Go for it, Water boy, I can't wait," She said dully. Sokka duly noted the indifference in her bored voice as opposed to the speed of her reaction to his taunt. As he had suspected, Mai was all about misdirection and self-protection. Given her principal, it was a logical stance, and far more understandable than Ty Lee's. Sokka pushed aside his lack of comprehension of Ty Lee's motivations as he slipped into full attention of Mai's more rational approach.

Boldly he slid the various knives from her palms into his own, first meeting her gaze and nodding firmly as understanding seemed to pass between them. He gave a lop-sided grin as he held up first the throwing star, inserting his middle finger in the hole at its center and sending it to spin idly with his thumb.

"Okay, I've no clue how to manage this one, and as to how you sent a spread of them into a target even as you aimed the other knives elsewhere is way beyond me," he said as he slipped the star off his finger, letting its points rest between the first digits of the fingers on his right hand even as he palmed a kunai between his thumb and his first two fingers of his left, the other knives held aside by ring and pinkie fingers. With that, he hurled the kunai in his left overhand even as he whipped his right hand in a sideways looping movement towards the nearest model, not even a heartbeat between the two movements.

The star barely grazed the model, although it did force it a bit sideways. The kunai, on the other hand, knocked it over on its brace, and Sokka smiled in satisfaction, even if only internally.

Mai had returned her hands to her sleeves upon surrendering her prized throwing knives to the prisoner, second-guessing herself as a fool even as she refused to back down from the challenge. She knew she should not find reassurance in the glance they shared as he took the weapons from her, but it was not her own competency, or the guard's nearness, that gave her confidence.

She believed him.

Hers were instruments he was wholly unfamiliar with. But he was obviously a practiced judge of weight and balance when it came to throwing things. Of course, she expected as much from someone who'd mastered the strange shape of the boomerang, and internally she gave yet another nod at him for not attempting to completely hold back in attacking with her own preferred weapons. The only question that remained was how much of his success was due to luck and how much to a conscious shading of his own ability.

Mai smiled internally, even as her face maintained its stony demeanor. She liked this boy.